Tell me a secret
by kalabangsilver
Summary: Our cannibal shares a few secrets with a certain FBI agent. One of their newer games - set around three months post-'Hannibal'.
1. Secrets

"Tell me a secret."

Starling rolled over in bed, onto her stomach to take a better look at her companion. It would not be an unusual request, should it have come from him. But it did not this time. Lecter opened one eye and threw her a quizzical look.

"Pardon?"

"Tell me something about yourself." She requested again. "I'm always telling you things, but I know practically nothing about you."

The doctor exhaled heavily and flopped back, seeming only vaguely interested in her questions. He untied up a silk scarf from the headboard and began to thread it absently through his fingers. Starling ran her eyes over the red fabric and waited for a response. Unluckily, her companion was truly the master of evasion. Three or so minutes later, Lecter still hadn't answered. Apparently, silence did not weigh heavily on his mind. He seemed perfectly happy to sit in silence and play with the scarf. Starling would say something to the effect of 'simple minds' but she knew he would prove that false, with one witty remark or another.

She flipped back over and slid out of bed, padding over to the window of their room. Her feet made soft patting noises against the marble floor. Marble. Starling smiled to herself and leaned against the balcony, curling her toes against the cool floor. What a situation. She, Clarice Starling, was languishing in a hotel with a marble floor, one hundred and thirty dollars of champagne chilling on ice, with Hannibal Lecter, no less! Starling stretched her shoulder blades, flexing well-exercised back muscles. Never in all her years would she have imagined this scenario. Or this view, come to think of it. Marble floors and a view from a balcony. Starling stretched her legs, like she had stretched her back and shoulders. She was lucky. She knew that.

Starling sighed, breathing in the delicate scents of the early night air. Her view was that of Buenos Aires just after sundown. Lights had sprung up from the centre of the city and spread outwards, like spidery webs. Down below, hundreds of cars wound their paths along streets, leaving trails of light. The sounds of the city drifted up to her, muffled by their hotel room's height. Engines, shouting voices, laughter from the streets below. The sounds of a city - never sleeping, ever moving. Starling shifted against the cool railing, feeling the stone against her bared belly. It was dark outside, but the lights were not on inside the hotel. Starling was glad. With the lamps off, she could stand on the balcony, naked as the day she was born, without attracting any attention from the city nightlife. Starling watched a backyard bonfire light the sky on the other side of town and smiled. The soft balmy wind was pleasant on her skin, the lights and sounds of the city pleasant to her ears, and her heart was gladdened by the company she kept. Yes. Starling liked her view.

Glanced back over one shoulder, she eyed the man draped with sheets in their shared bed. The doctor watched her back. Starling smiled. He was probably appreciating his view even more. She turned and folded arms across stomach, leaning against the balcony railing with her elbows.

"Come on, doctor, you're a free man now," Starling shot Lecter a grin "a man with a view." He smiled pleasantly in response. "And I'm a free woman, free speech is surely the next step?"

Lecter blinked, then tapped the bed next to him with the hand still wound in red and golden silk scarf. _Come to you?_ Starling raised an eyebrow and tilted her head. _Why would I come to you? _He tilted his the opposite way and she couldn't help but smile. Playing with him still felt a bit strange, even after a few months spent together. But strange in a good way.

Starling padded back over to the side of the bed and reached down, picking up her discarded dress. She considered it for a few moments then threw it over the side of a lounging chair that sat near the window. Nope, too formal. Instead, she buttoned herself into what Lecter had worn to the opera last night, a dark blue shirt. Lecter patted the bed beside him again and she walked back over, sliding down between layers of luxurious cream coloured sheets to lie beside him.

"Okay, doctor, quid pro quo." She wiggled around, eventually settling on her front with her head propped up on a few pillows. "Tell me things."

Lecter turned his attention back onto the scarf, nonchalantly arranging the threads of the fringe.

"Tell me a something I don't know about you." Starling asked again.

Blink.

"Oh, come on, it doesn't have to be mind blowing."

Another blink.

"You've got nothing?" Starling sighed and retracted her hand from where she had snaked it across his chest. "God, you really don't want to talk, do you?"

Silence and yet another expressionless blink. Starling sighed and rolled over, flopping back against the pillows beside him. She folded her hands over her naked abdomen, fiddling with the tiny hairs on the skin there.

"Are you this charming after having sex with all your women?"

Lecter's lips curled into a smirk.

"Yes," he nodded decisively, "all of them."

"Ah, finally we get somewhere; tales of charm and sexual prowess." Lecter continued to bathe her in a quasi-innocent smile. "Absolute bull, of course, but we have words!"

Starling grinned at Lecter's expression of false indignation.

"So you don't believe I'm charming, Miss Starling?"

She leaned over and gave him a peck on the cheek.

"Oh no, I know you are charming."

"…Ouch."

Still leaning in to his cheek, she chuckled slightly. Then she slid closer, insinuating her body up against his.

Starling had never really had much experience of intimacy. Her life style and previous partners had never been conducive to it. In Starling's experience, the process of love making had always been rather sudden and come to an abrupt ending. There had never been any lying together after sex. So the first few times she and Lecter slept together had been rather a learning experience. He was surprisingly attentive, choosing to keep her scooped to his side long after they had finished their initial coupling. Such proximity had automatically sparked some defensive instinct in Starling and she had been a bit awkward at first. Eventually she relented. Lecter made it easy. After all, it was hard to feel awkward when your muscles felt like liquid and all you wanted to do was curl up and sleep forever. Starling smiled. Pushing her belly against the doctor's side, she held her lover to her by looping her arms under his. It felt good to be so close to someone else now. No, it felt better than good.

She wriggled closer. An arm snaked around her shoulder, fingertips tickling the side of her neck.

"You should know better, ex-special agent Starling, than to knock a man down about performance in the bedroom. It's bad form."

Starling rubbed her lover's belly, just below the navel. There was a slight dip in the flesh there, between two muscle compartments of the abdomen. She ran her fingers up then spread her fingers, laying her palm flat against him with a sigh.

"Oh, I do apologise, doctor. I wouldn't want to appear _rude_." She put emphasis on the 'rude', which caused him to smirk.

"Don't listen to everything Barney tells you, Clarice."

"Why not? He seemed pretty reliable to me."

For some reason, this caused him much amusement. He laughed softly to himself, the chuckle causing vibrations in the skin Starling had her hand pressed over.

"Indeed."

Starling slipped her hand to cover the hollow beside his left hip. When she pressed there, she could feel the pulsing of his heartbeat. Starling tilted her head to more adequately meet her companion's gaze.

"You know, he said you were charming, too."

Hannibal Lecter raised an eyebrow.

"Not in the same way, Clarice, I assure you."

A half-muffled giggle from Starling. She drummed her fingertips across his skin. Her fingernails had finally grown out after tearing them while re-loading her gun on the firing range. Beneath her fingers, the doctor sighed. He seemed to be musing over something.

"How much did he make, selling my drawings, Clarice?"

Starling thought about it for a moment, then rubbed her lips across his shoulder.

"A lot." She kissed his skin softly, and then licked her lips. His scent was part of her, now, clinging to her lips. "But decidedly less than I could make, if I sold my story to the media."

Lecter looked down in mild surprise. Clearly he hadn't expected her to make such a blatant reference to their outlaw status so early on in the relationship. Time did indeed heal, but such processes were slow. It had only been three months and the wound from her tearing away from the FBI had made had only just begun to scab over. But with the safe boundary of scar tissue, Starling felt it was time to reaffirm her alliances. She was running with him. She had chosen to leave the FBI to run with him. The doctor obviously had underestimated her rate of acclimation to her new life. The surprise on his face was accompanied by another expression – either pride or pleasure. Starling couldn't quite pinpoint it yet. Maybe there was a little of both.

In the future, Starling decided, she would rather he showed less surprise when she expressed no guilt over their relationship. Nevertheless, it was very rare to catch him off guard, so she revelled in the moment.

"I could give an interview."

"And what exactly would your story be?".

Starling waited a moment, as if she was considering her answer.

"I was thinking something along the lines of a 'beneath the sheets' exclusive."

"Or 'behind the mask'?"

"Hmm" Starling raised an eyebrow suggestively "Leave the mask on. The papers like the whole... alternative thing."

Lecter's head had turned, dark eyes fixing raptly on her as his mouth fell slightly open. About a whole minute of silence passed between them. Starling valiantly trying not to giggle while her companion stared in what appeared to be mild shock. Eventually he recovered enough to reply.

"I'm sure the Tattler would be thrilled."

They laughed.

Thrilled the Tattler would indeed be. Starling could just imagine the scandal; red block capital writing splashed across the front page. She grinned and laughed again, imagining her old colleagues' faces, upon picking up the morning paper. Ardelia would flip out, she thought, fondly. And just imagine Jack Crawford's reaction! Starling giggled. She should thank Jack really. After all, his assignment was what led her to Lecter. If it was not for Jack Crawford, she would not be stretched out in the South American moonlight, post-opera, post-one hundred and thirty dollar wine, post mind-shattering sex. Yeah, thought Starling with a smirk, she had a lot to thank Jack Crawford for.

"Yeah, they probably would be." Starling nuzzled down into her lover's chest, breathing in the scent of him. "We'd probably be front page news."

"Hmm. Yes," He brushed her hairline with feather-light fingers. "Again." Starling laughed. He meant it in good fun. There were no barbs in his gentle teasing tonight, no mockery in his tone, only warmth. She pressed herself closer.

Marble floors, a room with a midnight view of Buenos Aires... and the man she loved lying beside her. Starling arched her body, feeling the warmth of him press against her spine. It was nice to have somebody, after so long being alone. They lay together for a while, Starling focusing on the feel of him against her, and the way her skin tingled when the breeze – teased in through the open window – drifted across her skin. The night was beautiful. Here and now was beautiful. He was beautiful and because of him, for the first time in her life, _she_ felt beautiful.

"Okay." Starling opened one eye in response to her lover's sigh.

"Okay what?" She opened the other eye and raised her head to meet his eye. He nipped in, kissing her lightly on the chin. "What?" Starling asked again.

"Ten things. You get ten secrets. If you have any questions, I will answer them as truthfully as my memory allows."

"Really?"

"Of course."

"This isn't just a mind fuck?" Lecter wrinkled his nose at her language but shook his head.

"Not at all." Starling narrowed her eyes. "Trust, Clarice."

"Yeah, yeah." She rolled over, away from him and onto her back. Lecter did the same, only he rolled right to the edge of the bed and slid out from under the covers. Sliding completely off the king-size mattress, his feet made soft patting noises as they contacted cold marble floor. He stood and stretched.

"I do not recall ever having lied to you before." Lecter reminded gently.

Starling folded her arms over her chest.

"No. You have, however, led me on several rather unpleasant mental journeys. You don't lie, you misdirect and you twist conversations whichever way pleases you. You play me like a cheap piano, Doctor Hannibal Lecter."

"Come now..." Starling's companion gave a throaty hum and a pointed smile. "Trust, Clarice."

"Cheap piano, H."

Starling twisted over to her side in the bed, pulling the sheets around her and revelling in three hundred and eighty thread-count cotton pressed against her naked skin. She watched her lover stride slowly over to the drinks cabinet and poured himself a tumbler of amber liquid. The moonlight played off his light skin as he stood there. Lecter was sipped the drink while leaning against the cabinet, staring back at her, apparently completely unabashed by his nakedness.

"Okay," she relented "so what's the catch?"

"No catch. You get ten secrets."

Starling frowned.

"And you promise you'll answer truthfully."

Lecter took a long sip of whatever he had poured himself, the light catching the liquid and glinting like the playful intent in his eyes.

"Cross my heart, ex Agent Starling."

He set the glass down and paced back towards the bed, pausing at the end and leaning on the waist high endboard, fingers tracing the intricate patterns there.

"I wonder, were you always so persistent when grilling your informants? Did you never suffer from a lack of confidence, facing those sinners and liars across that standard-issue FBI interview table?"

Starling drew a wry smile.

"Well, I usually just followed my superior's advice."

"And what was that?"

"I imagined them naked."

He laughed softly at that.

"Then I imagine this situation lends itself rather well."

Starling winked, in gentle parody of his trademark, and bounced upright into a seated position.

"Okay, ten secrets, right?" Lecter watched her, seemingly fascinated by her excitement.

"Ten, Clarice."

"Can I ask a question first?"

"Fire away."

Clarice Starling had thought ten secrets would have been a gift, not ten minutes ago. But now, thinking about it, she had so many things she wanted to know. She had always supposed that their future years – and she liked to think they would have _years_left together – would eventually reveal those little things that made Hannibal Lecter who he was. But there were things she wanted to know now. Things she needed to know about him. Starling patted the bed next to her and much to her surprise Lecter complied, stepping back over and sliding back into their twisted nest of soft cotton sheets.

He lay down on his side and watched her until she crawled towards him and mirrored his position. Heads propped up on hands.

Face to face. Eye to eye.

"It might be a good idea to ease yourself in with a question of general curiosity – one which does not have implications in our current state."

"So my question about how many sexual partners you have had is probably out of line?" Starling asked, trying to maintain a serious expression. Lecter remained impassive, save the tiniest trace of fondness in his eyes. He replied with a polite smile.

"That would be the gist of what I was saying, yes."

Starling swallowed. She knew what she wanted to know. She had been wondering ever since Chesapeake. No, that was a lie – she had been wondering ever since that very first moment their eyes met, through three inches of bulletproof glass.

_Okay, _she took a breath_, here goes._

"Why me?"

.

_TBC_


	2. One

**One**

_Starling swallowed. She knew what she wanted to know. She had been wondering ever since Chesapeake. No, that was a lie – she had been wondering ever since that very first moment their eyes met, through three inches of bulletproof glass._

_Okay, she took a breath, here goes._

"_Why me?"_

Lecter blinked.

"Why you what, Clarice?"

She frowned, seemingly annoyed. Lecter watched her back. His gaze darted across her facial features, reading the tautness of the lines there. She was nervous. He could see it in her eyes; slightly wider than they had been three minutes ago as they had lain, in repose, on the bed.

"You know what I mean, doctor." she replied softly. "Why me? Why did you talk to me that day, why did you come back for me, why did you pay me so much attention when I am so..." she faltered. Say it, Clarice. Say those words you have been dying to say. Lecter felt his lips part, but he held his tongue. Patience, he reminded himself, was a virtue. Clarice would reveal what she wanted in time. And it would do her more good than he to hear it. He already knew what she wanted to ask - wanted to know.

Starling took a moment, swallowed, and then resumed.

"When I am so much less intelligent than you, so much more inexperienced, unrefined? You called me a 'rube' yourself, doctor, so why did you have so much interest in me?"

Lecter sighed softly. The question had been mumbled and stammering, but she had done well, really. His Clarice was very tentative when it came to talking about her own insecurities. She had guarded them for so long that she seemed to have forgotten the relief of sharing such a burden. He removed his hand from under his chin, ceasing to prop his head up. He draped his arm over his side instead. Shifting slightly, to attain a more comfortable position, he kept his eyes on her face. Her nervous expression had not shifted.

"Why did I want to see you again, Clarice, or why did I talk to you in the first place?"

Clarice shrugged.

"The answer to the second question is vastly less interesting than the first, I am afraid." He smiled. "I agreed to see you that first day, Clarice, because the situation presented itself. When that abhorrent Mr Chilton informed me that a _trainee_ FBI agent was wanting to question me, my interest was piqued. Nothing more."

Starling's hand had slid across the bed to lie between their mirrored bodies. Lecter looked down to it then up into her face. Actions spoke infinitely louder than words. She wanted to reach out to him for comfort, but he would not give her any. This was something Clarice Starling had to do on her own. It had been her idea, after all.

"So, you were just bored, that's why you saw me?"

"Another of your ten, Clarice? My, my, you are using them up fast."

"Hey - not fair!"

She was beautiful when angry. A thousand lights sparked up in her eyes – flames almost – shining in the depth of blue there like shards of ice. It sharpened her face, too. That terrible strength that she held inside her, that which had attracted him to her in the first place, shone straight out of her when she was angry – or passionate in any sense, in fact.

Lecter dipped his head slightly.

"I was only joking, Clarice." He soothed.

The lines that had immediately formed across her brow softened, as did her eyes.

"Good, 'cause that's cheating."

"Of course." he dipped his head again. "We must observe the rules."

Lecter stared. Starling stared back. More than just meeting his gaze, she challenged it.

Eyes blazing. _Emotion... all that raw emotion... And more than a little fondness there. _Lecter smiled. _Your previous self would be shocked to see you now, ex-Agent Starling. _The doctor breathed her in, watching her eyes dance with a different fire than before. No anger, just raw passion. He smiled. The fire in her eyes warmed him - the only thing that warmed him all the way through. His only weakness, or his purest strength, Lecter was still not sure which.

"Okay then, smartass, answer the question."

"I was bored." He nodded, "and mildly interested that Jack Crawford would send a student to study _me_."

"Isn't that a bit egotistical?" Starling asked, looking mildly amused. Her round bottom lip had curled upwards at the edges.

"Mmm, a bit, but I refer more to the fact that I was not known for my love of FBI psychologists." As Will Graham would tell you, Lecter thought, but kept that to himself. "In addition, Jack Crawford was rather protective of me, I was his prize capture. He wouldn't have let just anyone into that dungeon room. I assumed that you must be held high in his esteem, that maybe he even _liked_ you..." He let his eyes wander up from her lips to her eyes and fixed her with a slightly sardonic smile. "Oh and he did like you, Clarice Starling, that was clear from the way he talked about you –t he way you talked about him. I decided it would be fun to play around a little, see what games I could play with Jackie boy's mind."

"So you saw me to get back at Mr Crawford." There was the faintest trace of disappointment in her gaze, and he had to hide the smile that wanted to creep to his lips.

"Originally, yes."

"So you were bored and pissy." grumbled Starling.

"I prefer vengeful."

"Hmf" Starling snorted "You would."

"In my defence, it was not the most invigorating eight years of my life."

"Could have fooled me." Starling rolled over to lie on her back. Breaking eye contact.

She was getting more uncomfortable than she had thought she would get, talking about his incarceration, then. He had been surprised that she had even mentioned it earlier. It had taken careful therapy to get to where they were. To let her bring the subject up now, while she was in such a emotive state of mind, was possibly an oversight on his part. Lecter stored that away for future reference and lay back, mirroring her position in silence.

Lying on his back, he stared quietly up at the dark ceiling. A minute passed. Noises from the streets below drifted in through the open window. A car horn beeped loudly, and a siren wailed louder, then softer as it wound off into the night. Lecter closed his eyes, delving into his other senses and magnifying them in the complete darkness behind his firmly shut lids. The scent of the air was a mixture of the night, himself and her. Another deep breath, another sigh out. The doctor listened carefully. The occasional distant city sound, a bird calling, their soft breaths in the balmy air. Everything was still. Beside him, Starling's breathing had slowed and deepened.

"It was cold and dark... I hate the cold." He shut his mouth quickly.

He had mean to speak aloud, but the sincerity of his reply caught even Lecter by surprise. A rustle of pillowcase alerted him to Starling turning her head. The doctor avoided turning his own until he had safely filed away the stray emotion in his eyes.

"Pardon?"

"I saw you the first time because I was bored." He continued. In the semi-darkness, Starling audibly swallowed. "But I saw you the second time because seeing you made my existence a little less cold and dark, Clarice." Lecter turned his head to watch her staring back, and continued "If only for a few moments, I felt alive like I had not felt in years. You were interesting and I liked you."

He blew out a heavy breath and waited a few beats for the depth of his statement to sink in.

"You know, you chose an inordinately hard question to start with, Clarice. I admit that I do not know, for certain, all of why I decided to see you again. Have you ever suspected that it was for the same reason you came back to see me?"

Another rustle of the pillowcase signalled her turning her face away from him.

"I came to see you because there was a serial killer on the loose, doctor. I came to save a life."

"You could have sent another agent."

"You had already talked to me; it would have been a waste of time to brief another operative."

"Jack Crawford suggested they send another agent, but you asked to go back, didn't you, Clarice?" He suggested. Beside him, Starling squirmed, looking defensive. "Some part of you opened up when we talked those few times in that dungeon cell of mine." Lecter smiled again, flashing tooth points to see if he could still unnerve her.

No such luck. Starling's gaze was steadfast as she watched his act. Squirming at the mention of her own emotion but not a flinch to see Hannibal Lecter's teeth, at such close proximity, in the moonlight. The doctor smiled. How perfectly Clarice.

"I was intrigued by you." She admitted, eventually.

"And?"

"And when we talked... it was like," Starling frowned, lifting her lip corner in frustration at not being able to voice her inner feelings. _Patience, little Starling, patience. _

"It made your world that little bit more interesting, did it not, Clarice? I made you feel..."

"...more alive than I had felt in years." Starling finished for him and nodded slowly. He heard her sigh. "Okay, doctor, you win."

"I was not aware we were playing a game."

"You're always playing a game."

A warm hand pressed up against the side of his chest and the doctor looked down. Starling waited, watching his eyes for permission to continue. _Yes, your answer is always yes. _He leaned down and kissed her, skin barely brushing hers. She responded in kind. Mouth parting. Movements soft. Gently asking for more. Then not so gently. Starling tried to squirm closer, to deepen the kiss, but he pulled back.

"Not always, Clarice." he replied. Coral pink lips parted again in anticipation of further embrace, only to be denied again. The doctor held his distance and, eyes hooked firmly on hers, he continued. "I am not playing a game now. In fact, I am very serious."

She slipped her hand around to his side and rubbed her fingers against the skin there.

It felt glorious. He loved it when she touched. Every brush of her reaffirmed that this was not some elaborate dream. Every graze against him reassured Lecter that Starling was real. Oh and she was real, most definitely! She was real and completely there; splayed and entwined with him across their shared bed. As his lover rubbed the captured patch of skin on his hip, thumb inching around to knead the flesh near his lowest ribs, Hannibal Lecter shuddered. Her thumb must have brushed a bundle of nerves, because the simple movement sent his entire left side tingling. Not to mention what it was doing to other regions of his body.

He breathed out softly, swallowing back the groan he longed to make. The timing was not appropriate. What he wanted to do to her was better kept for a different game. Tonight it was her turn. And for now, despite the way she was subconsciously tracing his skin, Clarice Starling only wanted to talk. He shifted slightly, allowing her access to his back rather than his more sensitive underside. She continued to rub, unaware of the internal turmoil she caused him.

"So tell me the truth." she whispered.

"I have."

Starling tilted her upper half back from him, placing her palms flat on his chest in an effort to distance herself. The expression in her eyes read 'confused'.

"You are expecting an awful lot, Clarice. Remember, you are inquiring about my feelings at a time when we had barely begun to know each other." Starling's eyes darted between his, as if unsure which to focus on. "I have endeavoured only to tell you the truth, the very thing you asked me to do. I see no reason for you to be angry with me for that."

"Fine." she tried to pull away but he tightened his grip.

The doctor suppressed a smile. His little Starling was practically pouting.

"Come now, Clarice." No response. "Clariiiice..."

"So why did you come back, after all those years?" She blurted it out – voice carrying much louder than it had with her previous questions.

_Finally_. Clarice had reached the crux of the matter, the real question she wanted answered. She had not really expected her answer from the first question. She had known as well as he that their first meeting had been one borne of mutual acquaintances. He had been the one with the answers, she had been the unfortunate sent to retreive them. Chance and Jack Crawford had brought them together. With a half-smile, Lecter thought it ironically appropriate that the FBI psychologist had been their matchmaker. _After all those scenarios, Jack, after all those times you imagined fucking her, you deliver her right to my cell_. Lecter fixed his attentions back on the ex-FBI agent lying across from him. She was regarding him with an air of slight worry. _An answer, Clarice. Are you really ready to hear be answer your question truthfully? I suppose we shall see._

"Eight years, doctor. And a very dangerous gamble coming back to see me."

Only a gamble, thought the doctor with a smile, if you intend play by the rules. And if you do not already know the outcome.

"I understand what you said about back in Baltimore. It just happened. We made each other feel alive, we interested each other; we had chemistry, or whatever you want to call it. I get that. But what made you come back?"

She had blushed slightly, Lecter noticed. He traced her flushed cheek, running his index finger along the crest of her cheekbone. His other hand slipped down beneath the shirt his lover wore, to the shallow of her back.

What made him come back? Pulling her closer, the doctor took a slow breathe in, then out, calming the waters of his mind. Clarice Starling was like a pebble dropped in the middle of them. Innocuous at first, then slowly causing ripples that spread out to every extremity. He had not realised how completely she had touched him until long after they had parted ways. What made him come back, indeed. Lecter hid another smile. _Clarice Starling, grand champion of denial._

"You know that I care very much for you, Clarice. Do you think saying it out loud makes any difference?"

Starling frowned slightly, but kept her gaze riveted to his.

"Of course it makes a difference."

"Does saying it in words validate an emotion - give it new meaning?"

"No, but-"

"What about actions?"

"What about them?"

"Don't they speak louder than words?"

"Yes, but-"

"So what if I run home to rescue you? What if I open your eyes and save your life, steal you away to a foreign land and make love to you under the setting sun on a bed with a balcony view... what would that mean?"

His words dropped into the silent night like a stone. In the quiet that followed, the doctor would have sworn to being able to hear a ripple touch the shore on the opposite side of the ocean. Clarice Starling blinked at him, eyes darting so fast between his that he was surprised she was not making herself dizzy. Eventually, her lips parted.

"I-"

But she could not find more words and closed her mouth again.

"Take your time with that one, Clarice." he let her go, rolling away to balance on the edge of the bed, giving her space to think his words over.

A minute or five passed in silence and Clarice Starling fell to twisting the corner of the cotton sheets between her fingertips. She was not looking at him, but not actively avoiding his gaze either. Seemingly believing the appropriate time had been taken to think things through, Starling spoke.

"You know y.." her sentence continued, but the words were half-mumbled and disappeared into nothingness.

The doctor raised one eyebrow.

"Pardon? I am afraid you will have to repeat that Clarice."

"I said, you know you're going to win when you get into one of these discussions, don't you?"

Hannibal Lecter chuckled and she looked up, eyes accusatory.

"Hey - don't laugh at me!"

Another ill-disguised chuckle.

"Hey!"

He nodded, pulling on a more serious expression.

"I am not playing a game. Every word I have told you has been the truth." She blew a heavy breath out. "It is not always a competition, little Starling." he whispered across the pillow. "You do not always need to win."

So, perhaps it was a little taunt. But she had given him the most perfect of instances to slip it in.

"Don't 'little Starling' me!" she mumbled darkly, sitting up and grasping a pillow in one hand like a weapon.

He did not bother to stifle further laughter.

"As you wish, Clarice. I implore you not to harm me with any form of linen weaponry."

The sound of a pillow thudding.

"Ouch!"

"Serves you damn right."

His lover relented, face morphing from a frown into a wide smile. Despite the feathery blow, Lecter gave another chuckle.

"Shut up!" Starling had sat up and folded her arms over her chest, trying almightily to appear 'above' the situation. "This is gettin' ridiculous."

"I believe you started it."

"I was foolishly expecting an adult conversation."

"What is a man to do? I attempt to profess my love for you and you hit me with assorted bed coverings."

Her turn to giggle, and throw the pillow at him again. He captured it this time, and held it out of her reach against his chest, smoothing the coverlet.

"Hey - give - this is bullsh-"

The doctor tutted in a way he knew would only irritate the situation.

"Tsk tsk. And now you fling abuse! I simply do not-" but his words were stifled by his companion as she pushed him flat against the bed. "Ouch. Temperance now, Clarice..." he whispered, not altogether in a reproachful manner. She positioned herself on top of him, resting on the other side of the pillow she had used in her earlier offensive. She held him there, pinned for a while, then loosened her hold, choosing to remain in-situ. Her light weight across his chest and leg was pleasant. Comforting almost.

He looked up at her. That beautiful fire was dancing in her eyes again. Not anger, this time, but another emotion even more dangerous. That terrible, endless strength that he so admired about her. He felt that he could almost reach out and touch it, touch her soul as it shimmered across her skin. He reached out. He tried. No soul, perhaps, but the result was similarly fascinating. She gave a whisper of a cry as he flicked his fingers in quick succession across her abdomen, working down to the smooth rise of her hips, the dip to the crest of hair along her pubic bone, the muscle of her inner thigh. He stopped there and scratched slightly.

"I do love you."

"I know."

They both remained silent for a while. The words had been said and it really had not changed anything. Neither loved each other any less, nor were ignorant of the fact that they continued to love each other a differently, maybe even a little more with every day. The words did not bring the fantasy crashing down around them. Instead, it bathed them in a strange reality that he, for one, felt more beautiful than any dream ever experienced.

Minutes passed into a quarter of an hour and Starling rearranged herself at his side.

"So was that two secrets or one?" He raised one eyebrow. _Still not tired of your newest game, my little Starling? _"Because I don't really think my second question was unrelated." she continued "I think there should be a rule about relatedness."

"That seems logical."

"Cool."

His eyes slid sideways to catch a glimpse of her face and a smile spread over his face as he noted her doing the same. Her lips twitched upwards too.

"Yes, Clarice?"

"Are you humouring me?"

"Well, it is what I excel at."

She nudged his side gently, but it was only a playful rebuke.

"Yeah, 'cause you are such a charm to live with."

"Actually, I have been told that I make a delightful host and companion. I cook, I clean-"

Starling snorted in a fairly un-ladylike fashion.

"-like hell, you clean!"

"Well, I employ a lovely young man to do the cleaning. I also have good taste in wine, in music, in theatre, I am honest, make excellent conversation and I dance." his companion propped herself up on her elbows with a semi-wicked smile.

"Oh, you dance, do you?"

"Question two?"

Clarice Starling smiled.

"Nope. Not letting you get off that easy." she shook her hair back from where it had fallen across her eyes. "This time it's your turn."

"My turn?"

"Yeah. You choose something - and not something lame, cause that's cheating too!"

"Cheat?" A wink. "I would not dare. You still have five more pillows."

Starling chuckled.

The doctor lay back against his own pillows and considered her proposition. What to tell her? There were so many things. Things he had never shared with anyone before, he felt a uncharacteristic and strangely overpowering urge to share with her now. One memory in particular, perhaps not an important one but never-the-less on of his best protected, sprang to mind. Treasured safe in the depths of his memory palace, this had been shared with no one. His eyes flickered over to Clarice Starling. _You really do not know what this means, to share this with you._ Oh, the things a man in love will do.

Hannibal Lecter took a slow breath.

"If you deem it fitting, Clarice, I would like to tell you about the summer before my family died."


	3. Two

**Two**

"_If you deem it fitting, Clarice, I would like to tell you about the summer before my family died."_

"About your family?"

He nodded his reply.

It had quite surprised Starling that Lecter had openly volunteered information about his early childhood. It was one of the subjects about which they had very sparingly talked, even in their most intimate moments. There was definite caution about him when it did come up, so she had never pushed the matter. If he needed to, Starling decided, he would eventually tell her. If not, she realised it did not really matter.

Much as Starling relished the thought of knowing more about her lover, she had long abandoned the preconception that knowing his past would suddenly explain why he was who he was. There were too many variables involved in a human lifetime to attribute the nature of a person to a singular incident. Though, Starling reasoned, she rather doubted Hannibal Lecter would have become such an infamous name should the dark events surrounding Mischa Lecter have never occurred.

She did not move closer to him, but did extend one hand halfway across the bed. He did the same, moving only close enough that their fingers brushed. One steady index finger slid into the dip between it and her thumb, then back again. Starling shivered. His hands had been places on her body which made her tremble for other reasons. They had held her, healed her and loved her, but she never shivered more than when he touched her there.

"Yes, my family."

His voice was deep and purposefully steady. Starling wondered whether he was beginning to regret his choice of secret.

"That sounds…" What was she supposed to say, dark and a bit depressing?

Starling wanted to know more about him, truly wanted to know. She just didn't know how to show she wanted to know more about his past without sounding callous. Glancing over, Starling found her lover watching raptly. Resisting the urge to look away, she held his gaze until a smile crawled out across his lips.

"I am not being as morbid as you think I am."

She frowned.

"And by that you mean..?"

"That this secret does not involve pillage, murder or cannibalistic deeds."

Starling swallowed and tightened her fingertips into the soft sheets beneath them. There was still a bit of pussy-footing around the subject of his past life – or cannibalism at all, for that matter. He seemed to know she was not ready to address that part of him. She had only begun to address the darker aspects of her own soul. They had never really talked in depth about his crimes. Not unless you counted when she was flying high on sedatives at the lakehouse on Chesapeake Bay. That night, in that house, she had accepted him; the good, bad and the ugly. It came as a package deal.

He was far from perfect. In fact, he was more flawed and damaged, than anyone she had ever met. But it made him no less of a human being. Rather the opposite, it exemplified his humanity. After all, perfection does not exist – at least not on a human level. Humans are all flawed and damaged. 'Normal' accounts for a very narrow set of individuals. The monster that people saw when they looked at Hannibal Lecter was simply a reflection of the human condition, albeit a rather amplified reflection.

As much as Starling understood this, she was still nervous about discussing his past. While she understood some of his motives, and accepted that they had taken place, Starling could never condone his crimes. Still, God be damned if she would let Lecter know how twitchy the subject made her.

"Really..?" She looked away and tried to regulate her heartbeat. Skin on skin, he would feel the quickening of her blood pumping through her arteries.

"Hmm."

Focussing on the wall above his back, Starling concentrated hard on not appearing nervous. Then fingers slipped between hers. She looked back as he took her hand in his. His smile widened.

"You're blushing."

As he said it, Starling felt her cheeks burn hotter, her heartbeat quicken a bit more. Damn. She cleared her throat. Why was she always as good as transparent when he was around?

"Well, you're making me nervous." Starling muttered.

"I know."

"Then stop it."

A small chuckle.

"But it is so enjoyable."

"Enjoyable for _you_."

A gentler chuckle this time.

"Yes." The bed sheets rustled as he rolled closer to her, pulling their linked hands up to his lips and kissing the back of her wrist gently. "For me. All mine." Another kiss.

Starling squirmed inside his arms, her lips curling upwards into a little grin. All his. Yeah, that was pretty much right. She was all his and he knew it. She slipped her foot around his leg and kneaded her toes into the soft of the muscle there.

"You can stop sounding so goddamn pleased with yourself." She tried to sound annoyed, but her lips disagreed and widened her smile.

"But I am, Clarice."

She gave him a gentle nudge with the side of her foot.

"Okay, tell your secret, before I change my mind and kick you out."

He gave another laugh and Starling let her body fall into the contours of his body. She concentrated on their most heated point of contact, at the touch of their lower abdomens, focussing her attention solely on him.

The rest of the room fell away. The half-light pouring in through the window, the faint sounds of the city drifting in; all of it faded as she fixed on the shine of his eyes. Maroon appeared almost black in the moonlight. Like blood. Twisting her fingers against his, Starling took a deep breath in, savouring the way her belly pressed flat against his as she did so.

"I was six years old, I believe, at the time." Old memory then, Starling thought with a smile, but did not say out loud. "We lived lives of relative comfort, on my father's estate." Lecter pushed his fingers into the gaps between hers. "It was beautiful. The castle was set on a lakefront and my mother would often take us down there in the summer. Mischa liked to paddle in the water."

Starling squeezed his thumb between her own and her index finger. Solidarity of one lover to another.

"We were down at the water this day. It was late summer, probably July or August and my mother had decreed it a fine day for a picnic. She had the maids gather up baskets and bring lunch down to the waterside."

"You had servants?" Starling tried not to sound shocked, but it sort of snuck in there anyway.

"Yes." A nod. "Life of luxury, you must remember, little Starling."

"Hey – I believe we have a rule about the use of 'little Starling'."

A smile.

"Yes. I believe we do."

"Yeah, well you kind of just broke it."

Another smile.

"How shockingly unmoral of me."

Starling sighed, masking the smirk that threatened to grace her lips.

"Continue your story, Hannibal."

"My mother had the servants bring the picnic down to the water. We sat on the beach and ate. I remember that even father joined us that day. We skimmed pebbles together. He taught me how."

"You any good?"

"Naturally talented."

Starling smiled softly.

"You should teach me sometime. I never really got the hang of it."

He pulled their connected hands up to under his chin and pressed her fingers against the pulse of his jugular there. Starling marvelled privately on how there was a slight lapse between the arterial pulse she could feel in his stomach and the one in his neck. The beat of blood in his neck happened, almost indiscernibly, first. Tap-tap, tap-tap.

"It's rather easy, really. All in the wrist."

Starling shifted into a more comfortable position, adjusting the angle of her shoulder into the pillow beneath her. She could better meet his eye from this angle, too. They watched each other steadily for almost half a minute, before she felt compelled to speak again.

"We're digressing."

"I do apologise."

"Picnicking by the lake?"

"Yes. Mother told the maid girls to bring down the old cups, but they brought the fine china. At the age of six, I was, of course, banned from touching such objects. I had a tendency to destroy anything breakable that came into my possession. So instead, I was given one of the chipped tin mugs that the stable boys used and told to make do."

Starling smiled again, imagining the boy Hannibal, prohibited from touching the fine china.

"As you can imagine, this pained my six-year-old mind to no end."

"Oh, I can imagine."

"I had to have a hina cup."

"Naturally."

"So – rather covertly, I am proud to say – I replaced the one my father was using with one of the tin cups that Mischa and I had been given."

"And who says master criminals are made, not born."

Starling's words came as a shock to both of them and there was a moment's lapse in the conversation. It was Lecter who recovered first. He smiled and kissed the tips of her fingertips, still entwined with his between their bodies. Starling, still surprised by her own audacity, took a bit longer to pick herself up. Returning his smile with one that was a little shyer, she dragged her gaze away from his face, focussing instead on the pattern of the hair across his chest.

"I took the cup." To his credit, he decided to skim over the indiscretion. "I carried my plunder down to the waterside where I spent a glorious five or so minutes basking in my own glory."

"Something at which you are highly adept."

A smile.

Starling breathed a sigh of relief. They were fine, after her earlier comment. His free hand, the one not tangled with hers, found its way to the small of her back and stroked reassuring circles there.

"And then?"

"And then…"

"…you dropped the cup."

"I dropped the cup." The doctor nodded, eyes twinkling in the fast-falling darkness. "I suppose it was rather inevitable. I was six, had an extra digit on one hand and was cavorting on a slightly damp pebble beach with a fragile china teacup." A slight frown creased his forehead. "Also, I have suspicions about what beverage my father had poured into the cup. It tasted – if I remember correctly – slightly more bitter than the grape juice my mother told me we were all drinking."

Starling laughed out loud.

"So you were probably intoxicated."

"Most probably."

Lecter opened her fingers, spreading them out and placing her palm flat against his own. Starling pushed against it. He appropriated the force required to meet her back at the midpoint between their sprawled bodies. She smiled. Her fingertips came up to the crease that marked the final joint on each of his fingers.

"So… drunk on a beach with a broken teacup…"

"Naturally, I feared for my life if my mother found out. My original plan had been to proudly present the intact cup at the end of the afternoon, announcing with it my ability to handle crockery like an adult."

Starling chuckled.

"Exactly."

"So did she put you on half rations or restrict you to the servant's quarters, with the other mere mortals?"

"Actually, she never found out."

Starling raised an eyebrow and pushed his hand all the way back to his chest, closing her fingers in a fist over the back of his palm.

"How come?"

"Upon the finding of the cup, my mother was informed that Mischa had been the one to take it."

Mischa. Starling tried to let her eyes drift away from Lecter's but he tilted his head and caught her gaze again. Firmly.

"Sorry."

"Quite alright, Clarice." He gave her finger a reassuring stroke with his thumb.

"So you blamed your sister?"

"To add to my list of my crimes, yes."

Starling smiled.

"Bet she couldn't even talk to protest her innocence."

"No. Well," he smiled "barely."

"Hannibal, Hannibal, Hannibal…"

The doctor laughed softly, and then sighed.

"I stole the cup that I said my infant sister broke. There you have it, a little guilty secret from me to you, Clarice. Something no one else knows. Not even my mother ever found out the truth."

"The start of a strange relationship with drinking implements."

Lecter frowned at her.

"How do you mean?"

"You don't seem to like teacups very much."

Teacups had never seemed to last long, in any of the places they had stayed. More than once, she had seen him purposefully tip one off the edge of the counter. Up until now, she had no idea why.

"Ah." Lecter smiled slightly. "You noticed that, did you?"

"Yeah."

"Hmmm." He slipped his hand free from hers and snaked it around the back of her, pulling her closer so her stomach pressed flat up against his. Starling felt the heartbeat there thud a bit harder.

"My turn?"

He kissed her forehead and nodded.

"Ask away, cara mia," he kissed her head again, against the crest of her skull this time "ask away."


	4. Three

**Three**

"_Ask away, cara mia, ask away."_

The doctor pressed a kiss against the crest of her skull. The scent of her hair and her shampoo – something faintly coconut – filled his nostrils. It made him slightly dizzy. Anticipation, desire... He pushed them aside, remembering the rules of the game. She asked questions and he told secrets. Sex was not part of the equation. At least, not yet. He would find out more from her without that added pressure.

His lover considered her options for a moment, before responding. Deep in concentration, her brow had furrowed. Lecter smiled. Starling took their little game very seriously, perhaps even more seriously than he did. Upon finding a suitable question, her face relaxed.

"What is the most impulsive thing you have ever done?"

The doctor frowned for a moment. Impulsive things? He was not impulsive by nature. In his opinion, impulses required close regulation. Most of the times he had acted on whimsy, it had led only to difficulty for him. So naturally, he avoided acting solely on them whenever possible. Lecter's frown deepened. Impulsive things he had done...

"I cannot think of one, not off the top of my head."

"Really?" Starling chuckled and slipped her hands up to rub the thin hair on the top of his head. "Don't think then, just reel one off." She pulled one leg up and wrapped it around his side, giving him a playful squeeze. "Riff it, Lecter."

He cleared his throat, humming thoughtfully in an attempt to distract himself from the heat in the crook of her leg. In his opinion, the rules of their game needed more stringent vetting. Continuing to press her unfair advantage, Starling slid her leg further down his side and began to tap her foot against his back in an impressive feat of flexibility. At a swallow from him, her smile widened, face filling with playful intent. The doctor narrowed his eyes. _Cheat._

"Come on." She gave him another provocative squeeze and he had to resist the urge to flip her over and pin her down; fuck her like the animal he felt flexing inside him.

Instead, he shot her a pleasant smile.

"I really cannot."

She cut him off.

"You've got to have at least one story of impulsive abandon."

The doctor smiled, feeling a surge of pleasure at Starling taking charge of the conversation in such an uncharacteristic manner. She had come far, his little protege. He tilted his head to one side, to stare into her eyes from a slightly different angle.

His Starling had always had beautiful eyes, but they seemed ten times deeper in the darkness. And fringed in delicate dark lashes, they seemed to span forever. Dark, dark blue, with flecks of ice grey. Around the edge of the iris, the pigmentation was darker, like the brush marks of tiny paintbrushes. A small gap in the lashes made her left eye appear slightly more closed than her right. He wondered, as he did sometimes, if she was made by some all-knowing being. She was so beautiful. So perfectly flawed. Sometimes, for a split second or two, he almost believed there was something greater, something omnipotent.

His beautiful lover blinked slowly, long lashes dancing over endless blue eyes.

"Come on..."

It was quite late, thought the doctor, letting his eyes travel paths over her bare shoulders and neck. They should be sleeping, but he did not really want to sleep. From the soft happy noises Starling made as she sighed against his skin, he deduced that neither did she. Heaving another sigh, she pushing her belly against his, wiggling around, trying to get more comfortable. Her abdomen was taut, firm muscle and soft, warm skin. She twisted her hips around, shifting her leg from his side down to against his knee.

"Okay." Concentrating on the touch and smell of her, Lecter deliberated over his next words. After a minute or so, he spoke. "There is one time that I can think of."

Her fingers traced slow half circles around the back of his ear with warm, warm fingertips. Impulses pricked again inside him. And again he pushed past them. He locked eyes with his lover. Dangerously close to cheating again, little Starling.

"It was the day after I received my first pay check from my first job as a medical practitioner. I was a junior attending physician, if I remember correctly, in the psychiatric ward of a downtown hospital. One morning, behind by two months on my rent and deep into my overdraft to pay for my medical school tuition, I received a letter stating that almost a quarter of my gross pay had been deducted because some clerk in hospital HR had placed me on an emergency tax band."

Starling grimaced.

"Ouch."

"Indeed."

The doctor slid his hands from their position; one to her neck, one to the rise of her hip. There was a crease in the skin there, from where her leg was crooked over his. He traced along it. A beautiful flaw. One of those tiny imperfections which made her so perfectly human.

"That was the final straw for me. I had worked very hard to get to where I was. I had managed to get into and pass medical school then I had finally found a job in a decent practice. I was done, fed up and the word seemed to be treating me unfairly."

Starling squeezed him with the heel of her foot, leg still looped around his.

"To add to this, as I was trying to catch a last hour's sleep before my shift I had the pleasure of hearing the young couple across the hall enjoying themselves, quite vocally, inside their apartment. Fed up and sleep deprived, I stormed over there and nearly broke the door down to get their attention. When they eventually answered, I asked whether they even had jobs to go to the next morning. To which they answered; 'no man, we're between jobs at the moment. Livin' off the state'."

Starling's eyes sparkled as she watched him fondly.

It was strange having another human being watch him like that. It felt… He was not sure how it felt. Good, perhaps. He pushed the feelings gently aside, to analyse later at his leisure and continued with his story.

"I impulsively decided to see how the other half lived. I called in to work, cancelled all my appointments and went back to bed."

"Mmm. Sounds like a plan."

She gave the doctor a lazy smile, eyes still soft.

He was not sure which he thought more magnificent; the fire in her eyes when she was angered, or the latent threat of her at rest. Even now, stretched out beside him and revelling in her newest game, there was a part of her that was not truly relaxed. She was strong and lithe, ready to spring into action. To fight or to flee. He might compare her to a cat. Or perhaps, more appropriately, to a lioness. Beautiful in repose but lethal when riled. First and foremost she was a lover, but if the occasion arose, she was an equally effective killer. He was sure the root of their attraction lay somewhere in there. But he would not envy having to pin-point it exactly.

The lover/killer's fingers grazed the skin below his navel, causing muscles to jerk involuntarily in his lower body. He focused on the story, ignoring to the best of his ability the internal battling of hormones and impulses. He blinked purposefully slowly. Right. Story - impulsive secrets - talk - now! He cleared his throat and began.

"I slept till noon, took a walk in the park and then spent the rest of the day sat, naked in my apartment, drinking beer on front of the television. I had expected the experience to tell me why I was glad I was not one of those leeching off the government, but it turned out to be a surprisingly good day."

It was the quivering of her stomach against his that alerted him to her laughter.

"What?"

Her mirth intensified, whole body shaking now, as if it was spreading out from her centre to the ends of her limbs.

"What is it, Clarice?"

"Sorry" she giggled again. "Just having a great vision of you, in your underwear, drinking beer."

"No underwear."

Another giggle.

"Still, you kind of planned that. I mean, you even called into work to cancel your appointments."

"Okay," he frowned and sighed. "Okay… Once I flew to Belize just because I was passing the airport and feeling cold."

"Really?"

The doctor smiled and shook his head.

'No, but I wanted to. I really wanted to, that day. It was a cold November night and I was driving home to a dark and empty apartment."

"Even the loner gets lonely, then?"

A little stab, an urge to hold back, pricked inside him. He pushed through it with difficulty. It was not easy to pour out the secrets he had spent his whole life protecting.

"Everyone gets lonely."

Noting, perhaps, that he had not answered her question, Starling probed again.

"Even the mighty Hannibal Lecter?"

He held his silence but from her expression, he could tell she had received his answer. _All the time, Clarice Starling. _

She tilted her head, wanting more.

"Of course I was, at first. I was barely more than a child when I parted from what was left of my family. But after that, I became used to being alone. It was a simpler way to live. Fewer complications, fewer considerations." He traced lines across her back. His lover knew all about being alone. There was nothing about loneliness that he needed to tell her.

"And now?"

That little stab of insecurity pricked inside again, but Lecter forced himself to answer anyway. Those were the rules of the game, and it had always been the game he was interested in, never the score. That Starling was privy to a few more secrets than originally bargained for was something, the doctor decided, he could live with.

"And now," He paused before answering her question, however, giving his imminent response a moment to gather gravitas. In terms of game rules, timing was number one. "Now, I am not as alone as before."

She leaned in, pushing her face against him so that the doctor felt, rather than saw her smile.

"That's good."

He rubbed her lower back. Time to gently push things on, this subject had run its course and there was little more to be learned from her here.

"As for impulsive acts, I'm afraid I do not really function well without thinking things through first. I do not mind ad-libbing to amend a plan, but I like to have a plan."

A few minutes passed in contemplative silence, then;

"Okay," Starling pulled herself upright, detangling her legs from his. "I have another one. Sit up and face me."

Intrigued, the doctor complied.


	5. Four, Five

'Four, Five'

"_Okay," Starling pulled herself upright, detangling her legs from his. "I have another one. Sit up and face me." _

_Intrigued, the doctor complied._

"Where did you get this scar here?"

Starling had searched his body quite carefully for the one she wanted. It was a small scar, near the apex of his shoulder. A narrow white scar that ran along the top of his pectoral muscles.

"Why this one? I've got far more impressive."

True, thought Starling, eyes roaming over his body. There were a few rather more macabre looking marks on his side. One, she knew, was the bullet that Agent Graham had shot. Another, further up on his shoulder, was where she knew he had his shoulder surgically reducted, after his attack on the nurse in Baltimore. There were a few others, marks that she could not assign a reason for, but it was this one she was most curious about.

Starling stroked along the thin scar again, while watching his face. Doctor Lecter tilted his head, enquiringly.

"Because when I touch it, you smile.'

The trace of a smile that had lingered around his mouth became more pronounced, and his eyes sparked slightly with pleasure.

"I believe that one," he ran his own finger along it, as if trying to remind himself of the scar's origins. "That harks back to my childhood. I convinced myself that I could fly, you see."

Starling's smile widened, but she held her silence.

"My father's fault, my mother said. He told us all sorts of stories – fairytales and myths about flying creatures and winged boys."

"Daedalus and Icarus?"

The doctor frowned.

"I am afraid that I cannot accurately remember."

"Long time ago, huh?"

He fixed her with a stare. Starling got the feeling that she would be paying later for her age-related comment.

"I had convinced myself that I was special, that I could fly. I experimented, as all young boys do, with climbing on walls and up trees. This infuriated my mother to no end, but, I suppose, that only encouraged me more." His hands had fallen to hers and traced patterns across the back of her palms as they lay on the bed between their seated bodies. "My obsession with flying culminated in me jumping from a second story bedroom window."

"You what?"

"Jumped and flew. Well," Lecter smiled wryly "At the time, I was under the impression that I had done. However, that impression was shattered when I then proceeded to fall, fracture my left clavicle and bruise most of my ribs. I was rushed to hospital, where the doctor managed to reset my collarbone and, miraculously, I escaped with only minimal blood loss. That, and a sound disciplining from my father."

"You actually jumped out a window?"

"With a sheet attached to my arms like wings." He looked oddly reminiscent. "Sometimes I miss that moment. For a second, before I started falling, it felt like I was flying."

It was not something he had ever before admitted to. The wish to fly was so childlike and innocent that Starling couldn't help but be warmed by it. Strange as it was to imagine Hannibal Lecter as a child, there were brief moments when she could see that child in him still. In his eyes, mostly.

She reached up and traced along the scar again.

"I always wondered why you smiled when I touched it."

"I suppose…"

He stopped and let out the rest of his breath slowly, eyes darting all over her face as if searching for something before he continued. Starling did not ask him to continue. It felt like he was on the brink of something and to push him would only make him draw away. Eventually, he continued.

"I smile because there is great similarity in how you make me feel. Sometimes, when I am with you, together with you, I can feel like I am flying." He stopped to give her a half-smile. "It doesn't hurt as much as that first time. And it is much safer on my collarbone."

Heart in her throat, Starling searched for words to say to fill the silence that followed such a pronouncement.

"It doesn't hurt... as much?"

One of his fingers ran circles around the knuckle of her thumb, dipping into the crease between it and her index finger.

"Mmmm. It still hurts a little, does it not, Clarice? To love you must be human and it hurts being human. All that loss and pain... all that sadness." His eyes, that had sparked before with childlike innocence, now looked as old as time itself. And just as infinite. "I hold a lot of sadness in me. For many things I have seen."

"And done?"

The words had not been planned, they just sort of fell off her lips. Starling had startled herself. The doctor, also, seemed surprised. He did not move for a moment, but to frown slightly at her question.

"And done, Clarice." he eventually nodded in reply. "But not the things you are implicating. I have very few regrets, Clarice. I suppose I am lucky in that respect."

Starling turned her attentions back to his scar.

"How old were you when it happened?"

"Five" He half closed his eyes as she traced the length of the scar with her eyes. "It was a small flaw at the time, but skin stretches. It grew with me."

"Like all flaws."

The doctor looked pensive once more.

"Back to cannibalism again, Clarice? I didn't know you had it in you."

"Had it in me?"

"It is an uncomfortable subject for pillow talk, is it not?"

She chose to ignore his playful jibe, and pushed on with her line of questioning. It was, yes, uncomfortable, but they had to discuss it at some point. Neither of them was naïve. They had not entered into their new life together lightly. And she deserved to know more about him – about what and who he was. But she only deserved to know if she had the courage to ask. So, Starling plunged onwards.

"Why did you eat parts of your victims?" She had always believed in the direct approach. "Crawford said it was to show disdain for those who exasperated you."

Silence.

"Was it some sort of ritual?"

'I do not think I can adequately explain it in a few words, Clarice."

"Then take a hundred." She replied, unable to keep an edge of coolness from her voice.

Starling had taken a big step out of her comfort zone to start this topic of conversation. She had hoped he would have been a bit more compliant. A few moments were suffered in silence, then;

"Do you think me less human for what I have done?"

"No." Starling replied quickly.

She looked away, then back. There was still tension in him – in his body and his eyes. Her next words were of vital importance. They would dictate the progression of this discussion. So what could she say to describe the turmoil of feelings inside? Starling took a deep breath and continued carefully.

"I… I was just wondering why you did it." Starling wrapped her hand around his thumb – so much larger and stronger than hers. "I'm not trying to put you in a box, Hannibal."

His eyelids fluttered closed, then open again and a very quiet moment passed between them. Almost like a break in the typhoon of emotions that was the past few hours of conversation.

"I suppose it was my way – my ritual, I suppose you were correct in saying – of exacting revenge."

"For Mischa?"

"Mmm…"

"I understand why you did… that" she still found it difficult to voice it out loud, she didn't know why "to you sister's killers. But what about all the others? The flutist and the other eight before you were incarcerated?"

"Is this question number five?"

She gave him a stare.

The questions had delved a bit deeper than the rules of their game had first stipulated. Starling was doing more than playing now. She was testing the boundaries of their new relationship. Testing how far she could push him – how far she was allowed to push him – and what he would respond to. It was a test of faith, really. Of how much he would willingly reveal to her.

"Okay, if you want it to be, then yeah."

A beat or two of silence.

"Do you know of George Leigh Mallory, Clarice? He was a British mountaineer who took part in the first three expeditions to Everest. Do you know how he responded, when he was asked why he wanted to climb the world's highest mountain?"

Starling frowned and shook her head. Once more, Lecter had thrown her in over her head. She had no idea where he was heading. The doctor, aware but unsympathetic to her confusion, smiled and continued.

"He perished near its summit, Clarice, on his third attempt. But do you know what he was reported to have said, in his interview beforehand?"

"No, Doctor."

"He said; 'Because it is there'."

Another moment passed between the two of them. Starling's eyes darted between each of his, occasionally making up the triangle with a glance to his mouth, which was curled in a half-smile.

"So?"

"_So_, Clarice? How crass, I believed your vocabulary to be better than that."

"Okay… What do you mean by that?" she corrected, reminding herself to exact revenge for his anal grammatical policing later that night.

"I mean, that I did what I did simply because I was able to," His smile twitched slightly at her deepening frown "because I had the opportunity and the impulse to… because I could."

"On whim, you expect me to believe it was simply that?"

"Not _simply_, Clarice, never simply. Of course there was an aspect of revenge in the matter. It was probably even subconscious at first, but yes, it was present. To consume one's enemy was my idea - ingrained from my childhood - of the ultimate dishonour."

He leant in towards her, pushing her slowly back into the bed, her neck and shoulders deep into the soft folds and rises of the pillows behind them. Her breathing quickened subconsciously. She wasn't sure if she was frightened or exhilarated. Maybe it was a bit of both. He crawled over her.

"And yes," the doctor continued "I did it because it showed my disdain. As Jackie boy so aptly put it, they 'exasperated me', and I responded." Doctor Lecter leaned in, then, speaking into the hollow under her cheekbone. He kissed her there, and then lower, on her jaw line. "I ate them because I could, Clarice. Does that anger you?"

She waited a few seconds before replying, her heart hammering in her chest all the while.

"No."

"No?"

The smooth deepness of his voice was intoxicating. She felt as if she was drowning in it, slipping into a deep slumber, lulled by his voice and the smooth circles he had begun to trace across her shoulder.

"Perhaps your question should have been why I kill, hmm? Not why I chose to ate my victims."

Her eyes opened at this, and she met his gaze with no quarter and no mercy.

"Why you kill never puzzled me, Doctor Lecter."

He cocked his head, caught off guard.

"You kill because you believe it is right, or because you must."

His mouth opened ever-so-slightly and he tilted his head even further, then paused and tilted it back the other way, as if examining her from multiple angles would give him sudden insight into her mind. His expression was unreadable, except for the glint of frustration in the lines about his eyes.

"What are you thinking?"

"That you continue to surprise me."

"Is that a bad or good thing?" Starling frowned.

"Good," His mouth twitched upwards "definitely good. There are parts of you that I still have yet to learn. And that pleases me, greatly."

"What happens if I stop surprising you, one day?"

"Question six?"

"No, just a question I would like you to answer."

He was silent for a moment, and then he licked his upper lip and sighed.

"I do not think you ever need to worry about that."

"I think it's a good idea to give it some thought – especially considering how others who fail interest you have fared."

Lecter chuckled and leant in close again, pressing his lips and then his tongue against the side of her throat, in what Starling had decided must be his favourite spot.

"I think that you need to learn to relinquish some of that iron-cast control, ex-special Agent Starling."

Cotton sheets made soft noises as they shifted position, arranging themselves in a more approximated fashion. Closer. Skin against skin.

"You're as much of a control freak as I am, you know." Starling whispered back, against her lover's shoulder. "Psychology 101. Controlling behaviour spawns from being denied control as a child – by an overtly controlling parent or by circumstances."

"Oh really?"

"Yeah, but you know that."

"Hmmm."

"No comment?"

He kissed the side of her jaw again.

"Did you know, Clarice, that there are two main types of 'control freaks' – as you so delicately labelled them?"

"No, Doctor, I did not know."

Their exchange had become playfully formal, reverting back to the mentor-student relationship of earlier days. Lecter had taken her hand and was playing with her fingertips, placing them against his then widening their span. Open and closed. Open and closed. When he spoke again, it was with that air of calm assurance which made her relax into him.

"One type seeks to control their self. One type strives to control others and their interchanges with others."

"And what happens when two control freaks meet?"

A smirk to match her own and then a reply in purposefully sinister tone.

"A battle to the death."

Starling chuckled.

"We're not supposed to get on then, are we?"

The doctor sighed.

"I am afraid that simplification of 'personalities' never amounts to anything, Clarice. You cannot place yourself in a category and me in another, and then decide how we would interact based on those categories. An infinite number of variables are involved. Then, there is always that aspect of free will – of human spontaneity."

"So psychological profiling is basically BS?"

The doctor chuckled.

"Not at all. It is subjective and fluid in its application."

"Yeah, BS."

"Coming from an FBI profiler." Lecter tutted.

"Yeah, who has ended up in bed with..." Starling cut herself off, not sure if she was aloud to make that joke. The doctor did not seem to object however. In fact, he let go of her fingers, in order to pull her closer.

He pulled her flush against him and she complied, burying her face in his neck, in his shoulder, rubbing it against his skin almost by instinct. It was a strangely animal behaviour, she thought, rubbing his scent on her, but it felt right. This all felt right. Strange and new, but right.

"Did you never wish you could fly?"

She sighed against his skin, thoughtfully.

"I don't remember." She pressed her lips against his skin, then licked them, tasting him subtly. "I guess I must have. You know, superhero cartoons and stuff, from when I was a kid. I remember wishing I had super-strength."

She sensed him smiling.

"I can imagine you would."

"Why?" she twisted around to meet his gaze.

"Strength is a quality that you admire above almost all others."

"So, flight… you admire the ability to escape, then?"

He chuckled, appreciating the irony of her statement.

"I suppose I do, in a way."

Starling watched him watching her. True, flight was about freedom – something she knew that Lecter prized above most else. But flight was not just about freedom. It was streaked with connotations of isolation and loneliness. To be always fleeing was to be a nomad without a home. Some of what she was thinking must have shown in her eyes, because his expression became slightly more guarded.

"Hey." Clarice Starling cocked her head to one side.

"Hmm?"

She gave a soft smile.

"You really don't like being analysed, do you?" raising her hands, she pressed them against either side of the doctor's neck. He tilted his head back, breaking their eye contact, but exposing the underside of his neck in an uncharacteristically trusting manner.

She kissed the pulse near the ridge of his larynx, once lightly, then again and harder. The taste of his skin and the knowledge that his blood, his very lifeline, ran just centimetres below her mouth was strangely exciting. Nothing she could describe in words. The effect it had on her was far easier to describe. It ran shockwaves through her body, heated her from the inside out, peaking between her legs and deep inside her. He gave a soft groan as she flicked her tongue against him.

He seemed to be finding the attention to his neck just as enjoyable as she was. More so, perhaps. His eyes were still closed and his body tensed rhythmically as she pressed her tongue against him. She could feel the beginning of an erection brush against her thigh. Starling pulled off her lover, rolling a few inches away so that there was distance between their amorous bodies.

"Okay," her breath was rather heavier than she had been prepared for, almost a pant. "Your turn."

"Mmm…?"

"Your turn, H." Her breathing had regulated slightly.

"I see." He opened one eye. "Can we not-"

She smiled smugly.

"Five more secrets."

He regarded her for a moment, then leant back against his pillows.

"Five?"

"Yeah."

"I see."

"Mmm." Starling smiled.

After lying for a moment in thoughtful repose, the Doctor propped himself up on his elbows and focussed his attention on her. His eyes flickered mischievously.

"Okie dokie."

Starling's smug smile faded a little. Why did he sound so pleased?


	6. Six

_A/N: I sincerely thank everyone who has taken the time to review this fic. I enjoy writing immensely, but comments always help to keep the inspiration coming. If I haven't replied to your review then I apologise. It's not a personal slight; I have most probably forgotten, or been utterly befuddled by MSN. Like many things in life, the workings of email and social networking sites still elude me. Thank you for your continued support and happy reading._

_Silver._

**'Six'**

_After lying for a moment in thoughtful repose, the Doctor propped himself up on his elbows and focussed his attention on her. His eyes flickered mischievously._

"_Okie dokie." _

_Starling's smug smile faded a little. Why did he sound so pleased? _

"Okie dokie... what?"

The Doctor beckoned her to crawl nearer to him.

"Lie on your side."

She complied, throwing him slightly distrustful glances. Lecter smiled to himself. She was right to be distrustful.

"Back to me, Clarice."

"What?"

He cut her off.

"Back to me." He repeated again, softly.

She huffed and wiggled around a bit, making herself a hollow in the nestle of sheets that surrounded them. Much to her surprise, his next move was to pull the sheets up and around her, carefully arranging them up to her shoulders. He then slid close behind her, close enough that his breath moved the tiny hairs along the nape of her neck, causing them to stand on end.

Her scent had changed subtly, growing more tangy and sharp. She glanced back, over her shoulder, at him; excitement, lust and desire brewing behind confused but very eager eyes.

"What are you doing?"

"Shhh…" He nudged her head back around, so that she was facing forwards again, then lay completely still and silent behind her.

Clarice Starling's body was held in a state of high tension. With his belly to her back, Lecter could feel her try and fail to relax. She knew he was up to something, but was determined not to ask. The Doctor smiled to himself. Her unease served her right for her bout of blatant teasing earlier. His body was still not altogether pliant after her attentions. The ache served only to enhance his conviction, however. He stroked the soft spines of her neck vertebrae while Starling let out a slow breath, trying to sound completely at ease with the situation.

"Do you want to know another secret, then, Clarice?"

His voice was soft and silky again and seemed perfectly attuned to send ever muscle in her body into a state of expectant tautness. She twitched.

"Clarice?"

Her lips parted and she mouthed soundlessly for a moment before regaining use of her voice.

"Uh, yeah, yeah."

"Goooood." He leant in very close to the back of her neck as he said this, stroking aside loose strands of hair to kiss her bare skin.

She shivered.

"Okay…"

This exclamation seemed more to reassure herself, but he picked up on it and a tiny chuckle escaped his lips. Starling tried to crane her neck around, but he moved his head over hers, cheek to cheek, stopping her from turning it.

"Shhh. Be still, little Starling."

His hands travelled south of her neck, skimming so lightly over her shoulders and body, coming to rest somewhere near her hips. The skin was so soft there, so sensitive that he could just… Yes. The Doctor smiled. One brush and her abdomen jumped, sending her back into an automatic arch away from his fingertips. He hushed her again, barely a whisper, and leant close.

"Here is a little secret for you, Clarice." He ran his fingertips lightly over her hips again, over her abdomen and up the midline towards the base of her sternum, stopping just short and leaving her trembling towards him. "You make my body burn..."

He traced along her, repeated lines, ever lighter so she was curving towards him, shivering in anticipation of his touch.

"I tremble for you, want for you, ache for you…"

He traced further down, into the hollow of her hip bone that led to the rise of her pubic bone and she shifted her leg, as if automatically, beckoning him onwards, downwards.

"You consume me, whole, Clarice Starling."

He kissed the side of her neck, tantalisingly slowly. She tried, once more, to turn her head, twisting her body, but his ever-light touch turned into a firm grip, and he pinned her, refusing to move again until she resisted.

Then he started his slow torture on her, all over again. Whispered words of encouragement, tiny brushes, fleeting pressure against zones across her body. His body was far more than excited by now. He fought with control. The culmination of his plans would be far more satisfactory in the long-run than imminent release of his own tensions. He used his own desire to his advantage instead, placing his erect penis against the root of her back while his hand held her back against him.

"Ah, Ha… ah- I"

Starling tilted her chin back, throat trembling with words unsaid. Lecter leant back and took a minute to admire his work.

She was beautiful. Tiny beads of sweat had appeared on her neck and along the crest of her chest, between her breasts. Despite the relative warmth of the evening's air, she had goosebumps running up her upper arms and across the entirety of her chest. He traced the line of an areola, admiring the smooth conversion of creamy skin to coral pink. His touch finalised the nipple's hardening and caused its owner to give an audible shiver.

"You're really, really mean, you know that?" she whispered.

He wondered if she whispered because she did not trust herself to speak to loudly, to shatter the delicate illusion of perfection that he had created around her. His lover's desire filled his every breath and it was all he could do not to shatter the rest of their game and take her there. He wanted to. Every masculine urge of him wanted to. But there were rules to be observed, even if his little Starling would object to it now. He pulled away and rolled over onto his back, breathing a bit heavier than he would have liked.

"I have been told so, on occasion, yes."

He fought to reply as lightly as possible. Any notch in his control and he would lose this game. Keeping his view fixed on the ceiling, he then proceeded to blatantly ignore her.

It was almost a whole minute before she made any complaint. Then;

"Hey," a nudge to his leg.

He blinked but did not look around.

"Hannibal…"

He ignored her again, trying to remember the exact syntax of the English translation of Dante's _Monarchia_; a tactic that had never failed him. Eventually, she sat upright and turned around, crawling over to glare down at him.

"What exactly are you doing?"

"Hmm?"

"Is this part of your game, because it's getting kind of old now," she placed a hand on his lower stomach, which caused a dizzying rush of adrenaline to shoot through him.

He hid it with closed eyes and a wide yawn.

"I do apologise, but I told you my secret. Now, if it is fine with you, I am quite tired. We can continue later." And with that he stretched, tugged the sheets half over him, and shoved his head into the crevice of two pillows, concentrating completely on keeping his face blank of any form of mirth.

His companion sat, quite stunned, for a moment or two. Then;

"Fine. Goodnight."

The rustling of bedsheets was the only sound for a minute or two, and then the agitated tossing and turning of his perturbed bedmate. Once she was facing the other way – he subtly checked – the Doctor allowed himself a small smirk. His ruse had turned out better than he had expected. In the crude American vernacular, she had fallen for it 'hook line and sinker'. Lecter allowed himself two minutes of wallowing in his own cunning, before he turned over to face Starling.

He only had to lie for another thirty seconds or so before she cast a sly glance over her own shoulder, towards him. Finding him staring back at her, she glared, then turned her head back to face the wall. The Doctor once more suppressed a chuckle. Best however, he thought, not to let the game go on for too long. While endlessly amusing to watch her struggle with his changeable behaviour, she was probably less than enthused.

"I'm sorry, dear, but can you check the time on my wristwatch? You'll find it on the sidetable."

She turned her head, fixing him with a disbelieving stare.

"What?"

Unable to resist it, he threw in one last jibe.

"Do not say 'what', Clarice."

She sat bolt upright.

"Well I'm sorry, _dear_, but it was a rather unexpected comment. Especially from someone who was suppose to be going to sleep."

He gave her a polite smile.

"You can be a bit of a bastard, ya know that?"

She flipped over and curled up, facing away from him.

Lecter propped himself up on his elbows again and watched her back for a bit. Her breathing had slowed, but not to the point of her being asleep. Leaning closer, he could detect the odd heavy outbreath, little 'huffs' of anger, for every few of her normal breaths. Even closer and he could see her heartbeat throb in the arteries on the side of her exposed neck.

Reaching over, careful not too make too much sound, he kissed her left shoulder blade.

"What?"

He jerked back just as quickly.

"Hmm?"

"What?"

"Nothing."

"I thought you were sleeping."

"I thought you might taste nice."

Conversation slammed to a halt and the pair looked at one another. Her eyes were slightly widened with surprise, his, with playful intent.

Whether she had known all along that he was playing her, or she had just caught on and showed no sign, Starling's face remained poker-straight. It became a staring match. And, for once, it was Doctor Lecter's façade which cracked first.

A twitch of the mouth gave way his intentions. Her reaction was not far behind.

His lover's face split in a grin, but she muffled it with a frown and hit him over the chest with her open palm. Another half-hearted shove was intercepted, and the Doctor pulled Starling closer by her outstretched hand.

"You do know that was-"

He kissed her lips, silencing response

"-mmf… hey!"

He kissed her again, tilting his head to catch her lips. And then again.

As the two lovers embraced, the Doctor took some time to take stock of his situation. For the first time, in an admittedly long time, he was content. Her touch satisfied him mentally as well as physically and sexually. He desired her, yes, but sometimes it was enough to take pleasure in her mere presence. In fact, if there was ever something as pleasurable as spending time with her, he had never yet experienced it. Hannibal Lecter had never before succumbed to an admission of love such as this. This was love beyond which he had ever experienced. Not love of a parent, or a sister. This was love which was not built on responsibility, or duty, or family ties. This was love spawned of choice and mutual desire, so terribly powerful that it threatened to envelop and overcome him. It was too much, but at the same time, never enough. He could never tire of her. She needn't worry. His hunger for her would never die, but she needn't worry about that either. His hunger for her lay in an entirely different direction than his other, more infamous hungers.

The Doctor lazily dodged another attempted swatting, sliding his hands underneath her and pulling her up and onto him. His lover gave a short, rather uncharacteristic squeak and he chuckled, much to her annoyance. Astride his abdomen, wrists still firmly in his grip, she leant down to speak nearer his face.

"Do that again, Doctor, and I'll shoot you. For real this time."

He smiled in a mock-innocent manner.

"Why I relish the prospect, Clarice."

"Yeah, well, you can keep your hands and your weird bondage fetishes to yourself."

He chuckled again.

"Perhaps we can endeavour to discuss them at greater length?"

"Perhaps you can stop teasing me."

Smart girl. He smiled.

"Only if you do."

It was her turn to chuckle this time. And she did so while leaning back upright, rocking her hips across him, triumphant smile on her face.

"Right. No quarter, no mercy, then." He flipped her over with practiced ease, causing her to shriek again with delight, and giggle madly.

They rarely indulged in such frivolous love-making. That did not go to mean that they were limited in their experimentation. Not at all. There were no lack of trysts and escapades, not confined only to the bedroom but to wherever took their fancy. They had been both gentle lovers and violent lovers. The pair of them had seen enough of anger and hate to be able to recognise the similarities that these emotions held with passion and love. But they would never mistake them. Respect and consideration were paramount and always well observed. Sex for the pair was good.

Still, it was rare for them to couple so playfully. She was very aware of showing overtly-feminine weakness and he was still slightly guarded, in terms of emotional sharing. So her allowing, and him volunteering, to engage in such an almost adolescent practice of 'catch me, fuck me' was a rare occurrence.

"Get- ow! Hey!"

More giggling, a bit more wriggling, some hurried kisses, then a slowing of pace and they met in a few tender ones. A pause. Their breathing the only sound that filled the room. Sharing space, sharing air. To the Doctor, in particular, such willing proximity was still a new experience. But it was not an unpleasant one.

"Hey… mmm" a muffled noise and the warmth of her breath brushed his cheek as she turned her head.

She was trying to talk, but only half-heartedly, so he considered was acceptable to continue their happy pairing. After a few more minutes of juvenile intimacies, he felt her smile against his lips.

Gently, he pulled back, though she fought to stay close.

"Hey..?"

"Hey yourself, Miss Starling." He let her kiss his lips again, but only a glancing touch before he retracted his head to just out of her reach. She gave a tiny frustrated noise and frowned at him, finally stopping to meet his gaze.

"What's wrong, Hannibal?"

"Nothing." He shook his head, admiring the flecks of colour that radiated out from her pupil. "I was just wondering…"

She had beautiful eyes. Tiny greys, blues and the most occasional green. Together, they made an ocean of colour, which seemed to change in different lights. In the dark, they looked midnight blue, with a hint of grey, as they caught the moonlight coming in through the window. Sunset had long fallen, now. Starling's eyes smiled and she tried to catch his lips again, but again he pulled back.

"Would you care to finish asking your questions, before we start what we are inevitably about to start?"

Her mouth moved to form the word 'no', but she faltered.

He had asked out of courtesy, but Starling would always see an underlying challenge. However good natured competition was between them, he knew Starling would always feel the urge to compete. Lecter held back, watching her carefully, wondering if her urge to compete stronger than her sexual desires.

"Uh, well, I don't have anymore questions yet." She was wavering.

The Doctor leant in and brushed her with a kiss, before pulling back and seating himself upright. He rearranged the sheets they had become entwined in around himself, covering himself from waist down.

"Take your time."

She looked slightly disappointed.

"We can do the questions later." She began to suggest, but Lecter shook his head.

"You asked me to do this for you; it is only polite that I honour your request."

"You don't need to be _polite_, H, it's just me." She gave him that lopsided, slightly self-conscious grin which he had become increasingly fond of.

"You really have no idea, do you?"

Starling's brow furrowed, still smiling. She frowned slightly and gave a little laugh.

"No idea about what?"

He took a moment, but even then, his response did not come easily.

"In my eyes, you are the very embodiment of beauty and truth. I love and respect you, both as my lover and as a woman. I would be greatly offended if someone should treat you with anything less than the upmost respect and propriety. I do not see any reason why I should be exempt from this."

The speech felt stumbling, even to his own ears. But he doubted that, even in his native tongue, he could articulate exactly how he felt about the matter.

Her lips parted and she seemed, momentarily, lost for words. The Doctor looked away, politely. It was, after all, rather a lot to take in at once. He had laid out a fair number of emotions in a short period of time. Eventually, after an audible swallow, Starling managed something closely resembling the English language.

"I don't know what to say to that, Doctor."

"You are not required to say anything, Clarice."

"I want to."

"Then feel free to express yourself in any way you see fit."

A minute or so passed. Starling opened her mouth and closed it again. Then;

"No one has ever said something like that to me, before."

"Then that, believe me, Clarice, should be their sincerest loss."

She made an soft half-laugh.

"I'm not sure if that's a compliment or not."

He smiled.

"I assure you that it is."

"Heh." She tried to suppress a smile, but failed.

The two of them sat for a moment in silence, watching each other with no agenda. Eventually, Starling spoke.

"So, are we going to do these questions, or what?"

Doctor Lecter nodded.

"Any time you feel like continuing, Clarice. I believe it is your turn."


	7. Seven, Eight

**'Seven, eight'**

_"So, are we going to do these questions, or what?"_

_Doctor Lecter nodded._

_"Any time you feel like continuing, Clarice. I believe it is your turn."_

My turn? Starling sighed, twisting her feet against the sheets she wrapped herself in. What was she supposed to ask, now? And how in God's name was she supposed to concentrate on asking it?

Despite her lover drawing back, Starling's body was still pulsing with desire and temptation. They had lain together earlier, exploring new avenues of foreplay, but had not indulged in sex for quite a few nights. This abstinence was an unusual occurrence, based entirely on circumstances rather than choice. Last night they had come home late, both exhausted, and she had dropped off to sleep in an armchair before they could initiate anything. The two nights before, they had been travelling; trans-Atlantic flight from Prague. Intrigued as she had been, by thoughts of the mile-high club, Starling had decided against making any suggestions. She was not entirely sure of plane etiquette, but the Doctor would be. And trysts in airplane bathrooms were probably just not done.

Denied their usual outlets, the heat that always burned between Starling and her companion was climbing to new heights. It was downright distracting. She could barely concentrate on not jumping him, never mind forming coherent, intelligent questions. The ex-Agent wiggled her toes, sending them deeper into the folds of the blankets. Across the bed, Lecter blinked stoically, in a less than calming manner. His gaze held a semblance of challenge and plenty of desire. Starling turned her attention to the network of fine lines across her companion's face, searching for a part of him that she could focus on. She needed to control herself, to calm these curiously adolescent urges.

The lines, fickle demarcations of time, had not deepened in the years since she had met him. Elongated, slightly, perhaps, but not deepened. Starling's eyes travelled them knowingly, she had watched this face a thousand times. A thin scar marred the lower part of his forehead, interupting the progress of fine wrinkles there. An old wound. Starling's eyes lowered further. The lines around his left eye were deeper than those around the right... He smiled more on that side. Starling narrowed her own eyes, remembering, with the slightest amount of shame, the number of times she had fallen to that smile. Stupid crooked smile.

He had probably noticed the effect he was having on her. No, more than probably, Lecter had almost certainly noticed. But he did not show it. Neither emotion nor intent crossed his features. The smug bastard was doing it on purpose, of course. He knew how much it aggravated her, not being able to read his expression. Outwardly, sure, Hannibal Lecter was every bit the gentleman. On the surface, he was calm and poised. But inside - that 'inside' she so rarely saw, and only in sweeping heights of climax - Starling knew that he was just a man. And, as a man, he took great pleasure in seeing her squirm for him.

Smug bastard, Starling murmured internally. Smug, manipulative bastard. The idea of throwing those words around, even if it was just inside her mind, thrilled her slightly. Starling smiled to herself. Okay, maybe she was being a bit harsh. Manipulative, yes, he was. But manipulation was a skill, he had proved that before, and a skill he was very adept with. And yeah, maybe he was also a bit smug, but such minor vices could easily be overlooked. He had given her so much, such wonder and enlightenment. And he was so beautiful.

Starling let her eyes wander over her companion again. She was not sure that using 'beautiful' to describe a man was commonly accepted by society. But that was what he was. Beautiful. Beautiful, but terrible. Like witnessing a car crash, or tasting bittersweet wine with the tip of her tongue, watching Hannibal made her shiver. Pleasantly.

Starling cleared her throat. They had sat together in silence for long enough.

"So, can I ask you something embarrassing or humiliating? Because I'm not feeling particularly enamoured by you at the moment."

His eyes sparked with interest.

"Not particularly?"

Starling hummed. The Doctor paused a moment, then licked the edge of his upper lip.

"Feeling restless, Clarice?"

"A bit, yeah."

"Why?"

You know why, Starling thought, but she did not say it. Instead, she just shrugged and looked away.

"What we feel, what we _want_, is perfectly natural, Clarice." He paused again, watching her shift under his gaze. "We are two consenting adults." He added, eyes dancing intricate paths over her body.

Starling realised that she was either to break the silence or endure his gentle teasing.

"Fine then. I want- ," she tilted her head slightly away, still not looking at him directly. "Want to do a lot of stuff."

"To me?"

"Some of it," She muttered darkly, almost to herself.

The tips of her ears burned, a blush beginning to creep down the nape of her neck and across her cheekbones. Starling chanced a glance over at her companion, both surprised and a little embarrassed at her audacity. Doctor Lecter looked pleased. Or amused. Starling could not entirely fix the expression, but she could quite easily guess its cause. He had caught her off-guard.

She coughed softly; an old habit invented to disguise unease.

"Okay, Clarice, opinions on self gratification duly noted." The Doctor winked.

"Any chance we talk about you now?"

"I was merely filling time, Clarice."

As usual, a gentlemanly adherence to rules and pleasantries, accompanied with a less-than-gentlemanly subject matter. Starling thought it was probably what unnerved people about Lecter, that the juxtaposition of the mundane with the extraordinary. Polite conversation and cannibalism. It had always unnerved her. Starling turned her attention back to the present situation, pushing thoughts of Hannibal's 'morality' from her mind.

"Yeah, okay. Well, I got a question now."

"Oh yes?"

"Ya ready?"

Her over-enthusiasm earned her a smile.

"Shoot."

"Okay, what are you most afraid of?"

Lecter frowned at first, then tilted his head and enquired, politely;

"My fears and nightmares, Clarice?"

She nodded. The Doctor drew his gaze away from her and let it wander the room as he contemplated, drifting over picture frames and the sparse wall decorations, up to the ornate lighting fixtures.

"Well, I do not care much for Spiders."

Starling raised an eyebrow.

"Spiders? You – Mr Big Psychiatrist, one of the F.B.I's Most Wanted, the infamous convict fugitive – are scared of spiders? Hey, H, I thought we were telling the truth, here. The whole truth and nothing but."

"So help me, God," he replied, "Although I cannot understand your surprise. There is nothing unusual about it, Arachnophobia is one of the western world's most common fears; experienced, in varying degrees, by a large number and cross-section of peoples."

"They're tiny, H, you could squash most of 'em with your finger."

"Yes, Clarice," His voice did not rise, but slowed slightly. Starling hid a smile. "Unfortunately the term 'phobia' is associated with _irrational_ fears. I fully understand that I am in no danger from most varieties of spider-."

"Yeah, and you don't live in Australia, so most of the rest of them are kinda a bit far away to be worrying about."

"Do I detect a hint of disbelief, Clarice?"

Starling shook her head, smile fading slightly.

"No, H, I was just teasing. But the whole 'fear' thing... It was a serious question." Starling shrugged. "I mean, if you've changed your mind, about continuing with this game, I'm not bothered." she lifted her gaze to catch his. I have a couple'a other interesting suggestions for how we can spend the rest of the night. And I assure you, they'd be just as mutually beneficial."

The corner of his mouth moved a millimetre upwards at her blatant suggestion, the ghost of a smile appearing around his cheeks, but the Doctor did not laugh.

"Okay, Clarice," his voice was soothing. "I shall desist with the spiders. After all, my strong dislike of them does not truly qualify as a fear. We shall finish your game then maybe we can play one of my choosing." he cocked his head. "Satisfactory?"

Starling smiled. Hannibal Lecter compromises. This, thought Starling, would be worth good money on tape. It was a shame she did not have a recorder. A part of her would secretly love to send a recording of one of their 'conversations' to Jack Crawford.

"Satisfactory. So," Starling rose from the bed, pulling his shirt tighter around her. "What are you really scared of?"

Early evening had somehow become the late, as they lay sprawled across the bed, talking of secrets and stories. While the Doctor had helped himself to wine earlier, Starling had not had anything to drink since their early dinner. Her throat was dry. Holding his shirt close to her skin, she headed towards their little drinks cabinet, footsteps sounding out soft 'patt-patt's on the cool marble floor. The suite was expansive and it took thirty steps to reach the other end, where bottles of liquor sat, arranged aesthetically on dark mahogany shelves.

Starling examined her choices. Vodka, brandy, and taster-sized bottles of assorted champagnes and wines... No. She wanted something light, something fresh. After a quick rummage, Starling found a small bottle of sparkling mineral water, hidden behind a 1987 Château d'Yquem on the bottom shelf. The Doctor had bought the golden Sauternes yesterday, for old times' sake.

Wrapping her fingers over the top of her bottle of water, Starling pulled it free of its icy trappings and headed for the bathroom, where she had left her glass by the sink. As she passed the bed, she glanced sideways to look at her lover and threw out her challenge again.

"Come on, H. Fears, nightmares, secret weaknesses."

"Biting for the calcaneal tendon, are we?" Lecter asked, voice muffled by a yawn.

Starling quirked an eyebrow.

"Pardon?"

"Achilles..." he explained, finishing off his long yawn. "Never mind, Clarice, I digress, I digress."

Still none-the-wiser to her companion's reference, Starling padded into the bathroom, flicking the lights on at the switch. Without the soft glow of the city lights, from the windows, it was far darker inside there than the spacious bedroom suite.

Starling gazed around herself. They had stayed in the hotel for two nights, now, but she had lost none of her initial wonder. It was beautiful. Flawlessly built, meticulously decorated and arranged; everything was of the upmost taste and, Starling had no doubt, expense. The tiles were white and grey marble, a gentle organic contrast with the silver fittings. A large kidney-shaped bath took up one corner of the room, a delicately tiled sink cabinet, the other. Starling brushed past feather-soft towels as she made her way towards the sink.

"C'mon, Hannibal, you've got to have at least one fear. How about death, pain... ya know, the usual subjects? How about being labelled?"

The assigning of strict and inflexible labels, the placing of people in boxes as ill-fitting as untailored suits, was one of Lecter's pet hates. Backyard Psychiatry, he had once amusingly called it.

Starling wiggled her toes against the floor of the bathroom. It was cool, pleasant to the touch. Across the room, the scene was captured – perfectly inverted – in the mirror. Starling walked over. Set into the elegant tiling above the engraved wash-cabinet, the mirror was almost four feet tall, reaching up to the dark, tiled ceiling. As she approached, it framed a face with a faint flush, with hair mildly dishevelled, and a smile haunting the lines of the mouth. Starling halted on front of the mirror and admired her own image. She was still wearing Hannibal's shirt from earlier that night. Dark blue had never looked so good on her.

Starling smiled and unscrewed the top of her mineral water, emptying it carefully into her tall flute glass.

"I promise not to laugh if you're scared of snakes too."

Silence.

Starling smirked and gratefully sipped her water. Then, rejuvenated, she left the empty glass by the sink and wandered back across the bathroom to the toilet. Pulling down the lid, she sat down on its cold surface and pulled one knee up to her chin to examine it. On the crest, at the rise where the patellar tendon attaches to the tibia, there was a darkened scab. Long, straight and tapering to a fine point; it was the result of a knock against a bathroom cabinet in another hotel, almost five nights ago now. She picked at the corner, with mild interest. It twinged uncomfortably. Not ready to pick off yet, her bad habits would have to wait. Starling lowered her knee and glanced again over to the dark rectangle of a doorway that led into their shared bedroom.

Next door, the soft noise of evening Buenos Aires drifted in through the open window. Starling heard Lecter sigh heavily, a noise of contentment rather than of boredom. The ex-Agent looked up at the ceiling of the bathroom, searching nonchalantly for arachnids, but the hotel was well kept and free from any form of bug life. No spiders for Hannibal tonight. Starling turned back to picking scabs.

She massaged her shoulder, feeling for a mark she knew was there. Crescent shaped and darker at intermittent points – tooth marks. Starling rubbed the bruised region. The bite did not sting anymore. Besides, any discomfort felt had been worth it. Damn worth it. Starling had been far too busy rocking against her lover's body, lost in the beautiful aftermath of their near-simultaneous climax (they had almost perfected the art), to even noticed his 'embrace' at first. Gentle groans, not-so-gentle writhing; it had been mindless bliss, any discomfort swept away on a surge of endorphins.

The pain faded back in gradually, accompanied by blurry reality and the soft ache of him inside her.

Starling rubbed the bruise again and her smile grew. A few months ago, she would have screamed and run a mile at the thought of his teeth so close to her jugular. Or shot him. And now... now, Starling smiled. Now, she was sitting in a beautiful five-star hotel, in Buenos Aires, wearing her lover's shirt against her skin and his mark on her neck. She did not begrudge the small pains caused by him. Just like he did not hold a few scratches on his back against her.

Starling tilted her head, staring into the dark, purple shadows of the next room.

"I'm waitin'," she called through to next door.

"Must we shout between rooms?" came the slightly pained reply. "It is much more enjoyable to converse face to face, my dear."

Starling rolled her eyes and stood up, taking the twenty paces through next door, back to their bed, at a quick step.

"Okay," she bounced up, planting feet wide apart and folding her arms in a mock-confrontational stance. "You've got me, face-to-face. Gonna give us that story, now?"

The Doctor, had lain back down in her absence, stretched languidly out on his side. He looked very, very relaxed. A yawn stretched his lips back over white, pointed teeth. Starling couldn't help but stare at them. Finishing his yawn, Lecter turned his attention to her and gave a half-cocky, half-lazy wink. Resisting the impertinent urge to wink back, Starling tilted her head and adjusted her stance, her arms still folded. The Doctor's eyes swept over her posture and he smirked.

"Planning on interrogating me, _Agent_ Starling?"

"Well, I might have to. You kinda suck at this game."

Not entirely true, Starling thought, Lecter had probably found out tenfold about her than she had about him. But she said it anyway, in a vain attempt at getting a rise out of him.

The Doctor chuckled.

"Come now, I told you a nice little fear."

"Well, maybe I'm after a nice big one."

A pause. Hannibal Lecter's expression slipped into thoughtful repose.

"Well, I think I can help you there." A pat of the bed beside him "Come back to bed, Clarice."

Gathering his shirt around her waist so she did not stretch it, Starling climbed back into the bed, taking up a position a foot or so away from her lover. He gave another contented sigh and closed his eyes, expression relaxing completely. Though Starling would never presume to know what went on inside the Doctor's head, he seemed to be contemplating something deeply.

Eventually, he spoke.

"Clarice, I do fear death and pain. I fear all those things you so diligently mentioned, and many other things besides. Like every human being, I am full of fear. It is a primal impulse, intrinsic to survival and I never underestimate it."

"I didn't think you got scared." Starling shook her head and rephrased. "I mean, I've never seen you show it."

"I fear like any mortal man, Clarice. What you perceive as...?"

Starling shrugged. Bravery? Courage? No. It was more... being on a different plane from it all, not taking emotion into account.

"Apathy."

She cringed as she said it, realising how close she had come to accusing him of Sociopathy. The Doctor, however, did not seem offended by her implication. He nodded, accepting her choice of word graciously.

"Well, then. What you perceive as apathy is simply a choice I have made; not to let fear drive me, not to let it direct my actions."

Starling leant down on her side, propping herself up on her elbow and frowning down into his face.

"Okay. But if fear is such a 'primal impulse'," she quoted him "so 'intrinsic to survival', then why do you discard it?"

"Because, Clarice Starling," his voice deepened in the dark. "Fear makes us human, makes us weak."

Even in the half-lit room, Starling could see his pupils dilate. The result was feral.

"So, you fear weakness?"

"I fear its by-products. I fear what weakness makes us."

"Stupid?"

"Consumed. Driven to do things which we would never venture to do in a sound mind. I fear the _power_ of fear." The Doctor watched her with deep interest, eyes flickering between her lips and eyes. "...You know, you are getting a rather good deal out of this 'one question'."

Starling gave a twitch of a smile.

"Guess I am."

Lecter stared for another minute or so, his lips forming a 'yeah' that he never spoke aloud. The pink, pointed tip of his tongue ventured out to touch his lip, and then darted in again. The light caught on the sliver of wet, left at the contact point.

When he eventually broke into speech again, his words were so gently sinister that Starling's spine tingled.

"I fear being in a situation in which I have no choices. I fear being consumed by fear, being weakened by it. Like those men who were so afraid, so petrified for their own survival that they slaughtered and feasted on my infant sister." He slowed slightly, words growing even quieter, even silkier. "At the same time, I fear being that boy, hiding in the dark, wondering if it is something I have done that has triggered this set of events, while helpless, powerless to turn them around. It is a devastating thought, Clarice, as you well know. Guilt."

"But you weren't responsible."

It was an empty reassurance and Starling knew that he had dismissed it long ago, but she felt compelled, by social rules, to voice it.

"Responsible, Clarice?" the Doctor sounded incredulous. "Then who was?"

"I don't know." She eventually replied, with a sigh.

"Who is responsible for Mischa and the lambs, Clarice? Do you think it is that God you wished for, back when you were young and searching for something to believe in?"

"I think if there is a God, he is a cold and uncaring one."

"Or perhaps, Clarice, he cares no more for us individually than we would care for a singular ant. One of an innumerable mass, indistinguishable and replaceable."

Starling mimed squashing an ant against the pillow, which drew a faint smile to his lips again.

"Quite." He rolled his head back onto the pillow, face towards the ceiling of their hotel room. "To use your coarse American vernacular; Shit happens. You do not have to be a bad person to have bad things happen to you."

"Life's a bitch and then you die."

Lecter wrinkled his nose in distaste. Starling bit her lip slightly, considering if the next words out of her mouth would anger him too much than was safe. In the end, she said them anyway.

"Mishca was an innocent."

He sighed.

"As much as any human can be." There was a pause for half a minute, then the faint rustle of the Doctor's cheek against the pillow as he turned his head to face her. "You were an innocent. Yet something was taken from you."

Starling nodded.

_You wanted me to say that_ - the taunt danced in his eyes, but Lecter held them back from his tongue, perhaps out of mutual courtesy. He was right, of course. Starling did want him to say it. A small part of her still needed reassured.

"Is that when you stopped believing in your God, Clarice, when you saw your father lying in that cold wooden box?"

She twisted uncomfortably, then nodded again.

"A heavy price you paid in so short a time; the death of your father, coupled with an awakening to a world suddenly without an omnipotent protector."

"I take it that you never believed in God, Hannibal?"

Lecter shook his head, slowly, never taking his eyes off hers. Maroon on blue.

"I was always suspicious by nature. An invisible, all-knowing being who resided – in my child mind – up in the sky, did not sound a viable option to place my trust in. It sounded too convenient, too contrived. No, I never believed in a God, Clarice. But I do not underestimate the power of such a belief. To have something you believe greater than life and death, something that could look inside and understand you... protect you... "

He swallowed, so quietly that Starling almost missed it.

"I prayed that night my sister was taken from me."

Starling could imagine the boy-Hannibal whispering child-like prayers. In the dark, in the cold, terrified and trembling. The scene was a mixture of imagination and personal memory. The girl-Clarice, praying desperately for something she could not have back.

Over and over again, into nothingness.

"I prayed when my daddy-."

She looked up, wondering if he would stoop to mimicking her childlike use of 'daddy', but his face was devoid of malicious intent

"I prayed when he died, for about a week. Then," Starling had to give a little laugh, remembering, "then I kinda gave up on the whole 'God' thing. I thought, if he couldn't even save someone who believed in him, like my father, why would he care 'bout the rest of us?"

"Religion is either a truth I could never face, or a beautiful lie."

He sounded as if he was quoting. Starling raised an eyebrow, enquiring as to the source.

"My own father," Lecter explained, with a soft laugh.

A minute or so passed in internal contemplation, for both parties.

Cars rushed by on the street outside. With the lull of early evening over, the night city sprang noisily into life. All around their safe haven, Buenos Aires sparkled, lights coming on in thousands of windows in hundreds of homes. People sitting at tables, eating, people sitting on sofas, watching TV; not at all different from all the cities Starling had lived in before. She closed her eyes, to better absorb the sights and smells.

Gasoline, the fumes of countless vehicles, formed faint smog, but the air was cleaner here than DC. Starling concentrated harder, keening her sense of smell in another direction. Vegetation, something tangy and fruity, drifted in from the coast. The faint aromas of spice floated up from the hotel restaurant, fourteen floors down. It all melded together to form an exotic olfactory bouquet. Starling sighed and leant back, shaking her head against the pillow. It rustled pleasantly. Beside her, Hannibal Lecter sniffed the air and sighed also.

"Well, Clarice, do you want to know another secret? I believe it is in my interests to finish our little game."

"Number eight?"

"Oh, surely, we are well past eight by now, little Starling?"

"There's that 'little Starling' again..."

A hand reached over and covered her face in a playful swat. Such light-hearted banter was welcome relief after the heavy nature of their conversation and both welcomed it heartily.

"Ow! He-ey." Starling squirmed, breaking free from under his hand and inching away across the bed sheets. "We did agree on the correct use of 'little' Starling, right? You do remember, I'm not making it up?"

With one eye open, Lecter smiled.

"Hmm."

"Don't 'Hmm' me." Starling frowned, indignant. Then, her eyes widened as he rolled over and pounced on her, in one fluid movement. "Hannibal, don't you d- !" her complaints were smothered by her own squeal – a noise in-between delight and surprise.

He pinned her down into the bed, pressing his chest into hers to stop her from wiggling free. Face inches away, Starling fought to keep up her frown; a task made rather more difficult by the grin twinkling in her partner's eyes.

"Shall we compromise? I'll give you the last ten minutes as two secrets."

"Not fair, they have to be asked separately to count as separate secrets. You said you'd give me ten – now you're just trying to wiggle your way out of your promise."

"I never break a promise, Clarice. And I do not 'wiggle my way out' of anything." His grin widened. "I rely solely on charm."

Starling rolled her eyes.

Lecter moved his face closer.

"Besides, I do not remember those rules being mentioned before." His eyes flashed with excitement, still dilated and wild. His lips brushed hers, but when Starling leant forwards to return the light kiss, he drew back. "Besides," Lecter's voice had deepened somewhat - heavy with intention. "I think I have been more than cooperative."

Starling's heart jumped faster. They stayed in that position for another moment or two, equally as aroused by their closeness and the implications of what would follow their final two questions.

"Okay, fine, you win."

Lecter rolled off her, releasing the pressure from her chest.

"But I still get two more secrets, yeah?"

"Deal."

"Good."

"It's a shame we were not this efficient at deal-making in Baltimore, Ms Starling." The Doctor's smile widened.

"Yeah, yeah. Get on with it. It's your turn to pick."

"As you wish..."

Lecter folded his hands across his chest and fixed those large, piercing eyes on her.

"How about a little story about what happened in Memphis."


	8. Nine

_A/N - I would just like to thank everyone who has reviewed, especially those who have been here from chapter one. It is much appreciated. Truly. _

_Also, I would like to apologise if this chapter does not fow as well as the others. It was written at two different times and I think I lost rhythm about half-way through. Nevertheless, I have exhausted all attempts at editting and decided to post anyway. Hope you enjoy._

_Silver._

.

'_Nine'_

_._

"It's not a long story."

"No?"

Starling rolled a bit closer to his chest, her smaller body wriggling as she sought out a position from which she could watch his face with comfort. The Doctor yawned. Despite the pleasure he took from their little game, it was growing late. If it were not for the niggling sexual urges that had been growing between them all night, he would have long abandoned consciousness for sleep. As it was, he flexed his body in preparation for another round.

"No," he repeated. "Not a long story."

"Come on, Doc."

He hated 'Doc'.

Starling laughed at the pained expression he let slip, and then her face fell into more serious conformation.

"You said this is a story about a time in Memphis. Is it about…" she nodded slightly towards him "_Memphis_ Memphis?"

"Mmm yes. Memphis."

Silence for a beat.

"Okay, how 'bout I start you off?" Starling grinned. "It usually goes somethin' like; once upon a time…"

"Indeed. Once upon a time in Memphis," he paused, for emphasis, "there was a beautiful young woman."

"And a man with _far_ too much time on his hands."

Excellent. A team effort. This could be even more enjoyable than he had predicted.

"Woman, desperate for answers, came to man for help. To save a lamb."

"Man, being manipulative, played woman like a cheap piano."

"Not cheap, Clarice."

He traced the soft rise of her breast with his index fingers, marvelling at the trembles he could elicit with such a simple movement. She licked her lip, eyes growing slightly distant and glazed. With the pad of his thumb, he brushed over one erect nipple, making her quiver more.

"Never cheap. Priceless; exquisite beyond description."

"Man, still manipulative, pushes his luck." She whispered, a smile twitching the left corner of her lip.

He chuckled and stretched out, as luxuriously as a cat.

It was nice to lie in the king-sized bed. At first, after he had left the asylum, during those first nights he had spent in different hotel rooms, in different countries, he had chosen to sleep in single beds. The rooms had seemed so cavernous after that five-by-seven-pace cell and such an expanse of bed on either side, as he slept, made him unreasonably nervous. He had grown used to it in time, of course. He had forced himself to; to give into such an irrational fear would be against his nature. Of late, however, he had decided that it was far more pleasant to share such a large bed.

Hannibal Lecter brushed his fingers once more across his lover, tracing the border of a blushed areola, and then let his hand fall to the fall of her waist.

"Okay, Clarice, point taken."

She breathed in and out deeply, causing the border of her ribs to temporarily show through her muscle and the pink halo his fingers had brushed to rise and fall. His eyes, desirous traitors, flickered to her body before lifting to her face. She smiled. Despite relinquishing a great deal of control to him, his lover still enjoyed the power she held over him in this aspect of their relationship. Yes, he had taught her the rules, but sex was, irrefutably, her game.

"Now," a little yawn, showing the tip of her pink tongue, "I think we were at the point where I was desperately searching for Buffalo Bill's true identity, and you were riffing Marcus Aurelius in a charmingly unhelpful manner."

The Doctor's turn to smile.

"Indeed." A nod. "Well, the story continues, in time-honoured fashion. Man, being man, falls in love with the beautiful young woman. Woman, being woman, is blissfully unaware, of both his feelings and her own."

"Come on," Starling threw her head back, voicing her disagreement with a short laugh that made her larynx dance under smooth skin. "That's bull-."

"Oh?" He tilted his head, staring down at her graceful form. "Do elaborate."

"I knew perfectly well that I was…" her resolve visibly fluttered "attracted, to you. And you, to me."

"I never hid my end of the attraction."

Indeed, he had never tried to delude her, or himself, on the matter. Lecter knew that love was far too dangerous an emotion to hide. It could twist and tear perception, threaten one's very sanity, if it was ignored for long enough.

"Okay. So you're cribbing Marcus Aurelius and imagining me naked-."

A chuckle burbled in his throat.

"Although I cannot say I have never done so, I was not, at that moment, imagining you naked."

"Of course, how rude of me to underestimate your gentlemanly intentions."

The Doctor tickled the soft ridges of her ribs, revelling in the feel of Clarice Starling's squirming body against his own.

"So, the man stood in his cage, watching the woman." he continued, in a carefully tempered voice.

"And the woman stood in her own cage, watching back." her forehead broke in one delicate crease. "You looked free, Hannibal, despite the bars."

"Yet, I never felt as caged as when you stood on the other side of them."

Slate blue eyes searched his. Lecter drummed his fingers against her ribs again, and continued.

"The woman speaks of darkest secrets. Fear in her heart, desperation in her eyes. She needs to save the lamb. She will sacrifice anything for the lamb; however much of herself it takes."

Starling's frown had deepened somewhat.

"I think I fell in love with the abandon in your eyes that day." He mused softly.

Her lips parted, un-sticking slowly, inviting him to her. They leant together with a mutual noise of pleasure, to share closeness that they rarely indulged in. His forehead pressed against the side of her cheek. She kissed his ear, brushing his hair back with her slender fingers.

"Just so you know," she whispered, then kissed the intricate folds of his ear again. "The woman fell in love with your eyes that day too."

Delight unadulterated.

His eyes closed slightly, to better imprint her words into his memory. He nestled the sound of them between the scent of her and the warm pressure of her knee against his thigh.

"Mmm."

She lowered her head from the side of his and pressed her lips into his, nudging several times before he opened his mouth to let her taste him. They kissed, tongues gently mimicking the act of penetration. The movements acted as a sort of foreplay, and he found himself aroused.

"You know, Doctor, if you keep this story going, I think you're gonna get lucky."

"Oh really?"

"Mmmhm." Another heated kiss. "So… man meets woman, woman spills her guts for his help, man infuriates woman, woman goes off to save innocent civilian on her own because man is not helping. Meanwhile, man skips town in an ambulance."

He pulled back from her proximity, back away from the heat of her embrace before his sanity suffered any more than was necessary.

"Mmm. Technically, I 'skipped town' in a plane."

She rolled her eyes.

Starling laughed.

"Yeah, yeah, very good." Smile. "Very _you_." She dipped in to kiss his lower lip.

A thought tickled at the back of his consciousness.

"What was your reaction, Clarice, when you were told?"

Starling looked up, from where she had been resting her mouth near his, sharing air. One eyebrow quirked.

"About your escape?"

"Yes."

"I don't know." Her forehead worked, lips tightening. "I guess I was a bit frightened." Her eyes lowered from his. "And angry, very angry."

"Why were you angry?"

"I felt responsible."

"For my escape?"

"And for every death involved in it."

A couple of second passed in quasi-awkwardness.

"I used to fantasize that I caught you, you know," A smile tickled the left side of her mouth, "stopped you from escaping."

"Let me guess; you caught me single-handedly, simultaneously cornering Jame Gumb and freeing the captive Martin girl?"

"It was just a fantasy, Hannibal."

"And what would happen after you caught me?"

She looked up, as if startled by the question, and he wondered whether her dreams had incorporated a certain degree of the sexual. Sure enough, a faint blush tinged her cheeks.

"Nothing, why?"

He smiled wolfishly.

"Curiosity."

"Killed the cat, Doctor."

"Ok, Clarice. We'll perhaps talk about it some other time, yes?"

"Perhaps."

Not if she had anything to do with it, then. The Doctor grinned.

"So, you felt responsible for my escape? You were frustrated and angry. Angry because you had failed."

"Angry because you were free."

"Whilst you..."

He paused and read into her features. There was tender hesitance in her eyes. A shift in tactic was called for.

"Understandable, Clarice, The FBI abandoned you. Just like your father, your mother; everyone you ever trusted and held dear."

"Only almost everyone." Starling corrected him, with a wry smile. Then she sighed. "Something happened between us in Baltimore, Doctor. I felt this irrational connection." Her eyelids closed, shielding blue irises from view. "And when you ran, I found myself left behind, again, with no answers."

"No answers?" He echoed, softly. "But you had the answers in you all along, Clarice. You found the killer, you saved the lamb."

_Did she still hear them scream?_ He did not think so. They slept aside each other now. He could feel her silence, hear her peace.

His lover frowned.

"Not those answers, Hannibal. Not Jame Gumb's name or where he lived, I meant-."

"Hush..." He brushed her cheek with one finger, amazed the speed her body shifted to nervous tension, with the resurrection of old fears. "I know."

And it was his knowing that enraptured her. To look inside and _see_, when others only glimpsed the surface; that was her greatest aphrodisiac.

Starling's lips closed, pressing her appreciation against his neck.

"It took me a long time to find those answers, Hannibal." Shifting her face against him, she sighed. "A really long time."

"The truth is often harder to see than the lies we create, my dear. Deluding ourselves that we are fine, that we are coping – and that coping is _enough_ – is far easier."

"I just… I wish I had seen the truth earlier. I wish I hadn't wasted a good third of my life in that place."

He captured her chin between his thumb and index finger, bringing her face towards him.

"If that period of your life, which you deem 'wasted', had never occurred, you would not be the woman you are today."

"Yeah, who would I be?"

"Clarice, if we number the roads we have failed to take and trace them to their destinations, we find ourselves with infinite possibilities."

"A butterfly flaps its wings over China…"

"…Hurricane in the Caribbean." He finished, scanning her eyes. They were sincere, calm. At peace.

"Kiss," it was a gentle request. One he only too happily complied with.

The lovers embraced softly for a minute or two. She was soft, her touch gentle, showing vulnerability she very rarely displayed; even now she had acclimatised to his company. He let fingers start to wander across her skin. Down her jaw, along the nape of her neck to the notches of her cervical vertebrae, he traced circles across her back. She arched towards him, rubbing the hard edge of her shin against his calf.

Stretch. Nudge into the soft of her belly with his tautened flesh. A little groan rolled in the back of her throat and she hooked one leg up over his hip.

"Oh, baby."

He chuckled.

"I have to say, it is very rarely indeed that I am called that."

"It's a term of endearment, Hannibal," she groaned in that beautiful deep voice of hers. "Roll with it."

"Shall do."

He pressed his upper-left canine and incisor teeth against her cheek, marking the spot, before kissing it tenderly.

"So, what's your secret about Memphis? You're spinning a pretty story but I'm a woman on a deadline. I want to make love to you before the sun comes up."

He glanced towards the window. The sky was still dark purple, but near the line of the horizon – far towards the east – were the faintest traces of a lighter blue. It was high summer and the sun only disappeared beyond the horizon for nine, or so, hours. They had been awake all night.

"Make love?"

The trick was to apply a good south-country twang to his words. She rarely failed to rise to the gentle mockery of her old accent. Today, however, she merely squirmed with pleasure and winked; a gentle mockery of _his_ mannerisms.

He chuckled.

"Before sunrise? Well then, we best hasten. Now, to back up a few paces, to before I 'skipped town'… back to that cage in Memphis."

Starling freed herself of his grasp and wiggled down, so her face was level to his stomach. She rubbed one side of him, kissing the strands of silvered hair that trickled down from his chest. Her lips were wet. They left a damp mark against his skin.

The ache inside him intensified.

A slender hand scratched his hip, and then slipped around to give him a mischievous tap across the buttock.

"Continue, please, Doctor."

"…Memphis," he purred the word against her hair, "behind those bars."

Starling wiggled again, her eyes lighting with pleasure. He shivered. Her chest was about level with his groin and he could feel every movement through the thin wrappings of their bed sheet. The tension in his flesh there was starting to become noticeable.

His lover pulled at the sheet and he shifted to comply, allowing her to free it from under his side. She slid closer, the material of her shirt skimming the sensitive skin of his lower abdomen. His muscles jerked, penis twitching below. She hummed, pleased, against his belly.

_Continue, speak, do something._

The Doctor stretched, hiding the fragility of his control behind a familiar movement, and then continued.

"I handed you a case file; your notes on Buffalo Bill, in a tidy manila envelope."

Her fingers flexed against his skin, stroking the back of his thigh. The position in which he lay was vulnerable; one he would not usually have submitted to.

"Though the bars of the cage. The two police guards were watching, Chilton was ordering them to catch hold of you - Clarice-!"

She had slipped one hand between his legs, faster than he could realise what she was doing. Caught off guard, he whined slightly.

"Damn." A grin danced across her lips. "I didn't even know you could make a noise like that."

He glared.

Clarice continued, unperturbed. Her delicate hand began to work, shaping around his body, alternating strokes. Naïve she may appear – inexperienced she was not.

"I remember what happened in Memphis. I got free of Chilton's guards and ran back to the bars. You handed me a file, my file, with a written a note on one of the sheets," she frowned slightly, and then her face cleared with the memory, "on a map of the Great Lakes. My heart was in my throat later that night, when I found it. You wrote that Jame Gumb's distribution of the victim's bodies was 'desperately random'-."

"-Like the elaborations of a bad liar." He finished, swallowing back another groan as her fingers settled into a steady rhythm. "You know, this is not entirely fair, Clarice."

"Want me to stop?"

Her fingers slowed to trace tantalising circles around the head of his penis.

"What I _want_ you to do, would be detrimental to the progression of this story." And possibly to your health. He added, darkly, to himself.

She pressed the tip of her tongue against his skin; lips warm, tongue unbearably hot. Another kiss and she withdrew her hand, placing it against his side again.

"...Sorry."

Her smirk told him that she, most certainly, was not.

The Doctor took in a deep breath, feeling the oxygen fill his lungs and swell through his body, diffusing through his cells at speeds faster than the human mind could process. The rush caused his mind to still for a second - a temporary high - and his body to become painfully alert.

Then, release his breath in a sigh... _calm_.

His heartrate began to slow. Starling shifted softly against him; the pressure of her midrift against his groin a gentle reminder of her presence. Her palm lay, lazily against his side. Her thumb traced circles.

"In Memphis, Clarice, do you remember when I handed you that file?"

"Yes." Her eyes flickered up to his. "You reached out through the bars."

He nodded.

"You touched my hand." Starling continued.

"Ah…" He let it trail off, taunting her with the information she had so beautifully denied – stored so carefully in the furthest reaches of her memory. "Are you sure, Clarice?"

"...Yes."

Not at all sure. Her eyes had flickered to the right. He gave her a moment, then;

"_You_ touched _my_ hand."

"Pardon?"

"You touched."

"No... you-."

"I held out my hand, Clarice. I invited, but you were the one to initiate contact."

"I didn't…" she sounded less sure this time.

"You did, Clarice."

A few moments passed. Her forehead had creased in a frown.

"So, what does that mean; that I touched you, that I was the one who initiated contact?"

He tilted his head, enquiring.

His lover rolled her eyes.

"Come on, you wouldn't have brought it up unless there was some hidden meaning or highly disturbing personal truth."

_Oh so true, lover mine. _

He smiled politely.

Flopping back down against the bed, she laid her head to face towards the window, away from him. When she sighed, the reverberations passed through the bed and into him. A soft organic hum.

He touched her back, tentatively.

"Clarice?"

"Just gimme a sec, H. Okay?"

The use of his abbreviated name had been her first assertion of their status as lovers. She had first used it only a few weeks after she had first decided to run with him. They had been in Prague at the time. And the suddenness of its use had caused his mind to still for almost ten seconds. Quiet with delight. His lover had remained silent also. Nervous, awaiting a reaction.

He had just smiled, taken it in stride, as if there was nothing more natural to him than responding to this new name. And, of course, there was nothing more natural; one lover marking another. A new name, a new start.

To use this name now was to draw him closer again. She was feeling vulnerable after this new revelation.

"Okay," Starling turned her head back to him and her eyes fixed on his; a deep, unreadable blue. "What does that make me, that I initiated contact? Objectively speaking, Hannibal." she added, looking away then back again. "You were a convicted serial murderer,"

"Were?"

"Are." she corrected herself, rolling her eyes at having made such a Freudian slip. "I should not have felt the fascination with you that I did..." shook her head again, corrected, "that I do."

"Here we fall into the realms of moral ambiguity, Clarice."

"Hmmm.

She placed her chin on one arm, lip jumping subconsciously, deep in thought.

"I mean, what good person...?" she drifted off.

_Is that what wonder, then, little Starling, when you look at our life together? Do you wonder what loving me makes you?_

"Define 'good', Clarice."

"Aw, come on, don't do the shrink thing, Hannibal."

"Define 'good', Clarice." He repeated, patiently.

She paused, sighed and then finally replied, in a tone resigned to the intevitable picking-apart of her response.

"Good is... doing what you think is right, uh, adhering to the rules-."

"Who's rules? Society's rules, Clarice?"

"No…" She looked away. "Yes... I don't know."

"You do know, Clarice. How do you know what is right and wrong? When you are a child, how do you know?"

"Your parents tell you when you're doin' wrong."

"You are passed on a moral code from your parents, from your surroundings."

She nodded slightly, frowning.

"And when you are older?"

"You know because… your moral code has grown with you, adjusting with what you learn from personal experience."

"Indeed. Now, have you ever knowingly gone against what you think is right?"

"No."

"Have you adhered to your moral code?"

"Yes."

"Then by your own definition, you are 'good'." He leant in, brushing his next words across her skin like silk. "But 'good' is just a word, Clarice."

A few moments passed, and then his Starling gave a heavy sigh.

"Ok, so why do I even care whether I'm a 'good' or a 'bad' person? I mean, we've already established I don't believe in heaven or hell."

"Religious imagery aside, Clarice, as a human being, you require the stability of a rule system."

She raised an eyebrow.

"Require?"

"Yes. You actively seek it."

Starling sighed and rubbed her face.

"Io fei gibetto a me de le mie case."

_And I – I made my own house be my gallows._

A rush of blood to his cheeks, throughout his body; pleasure that only she could elicit from him.

"And those rules of the FBI, those rules which you hid behind, for your own protection, became the bars of your cage..." he closed his eyes momentarily. "A beautiful comparison, Clarice,"

"Why thanks."

"But a rather liberal interpretation of the text."

She smiled and turned to look about the room, watching the hotel curtains fluttering in the light breeze. Then a soft sigh sounded from her lips and she stretched out against his body, as if finalising the conversation.

"I think I've had enough of 'good' and 'bad' to last me a lifetime."

A smile twitched his lips and his fingers sought out the dip in her belly, just below the navel. The soft down of hair there tickled his fingertips. He knew, without looking, that it was a pale golden colour – lighter than her hair.

A few moments passed in reality, as he stroked her, then Starling spoke again.

"You know, these 'secrets' seem to be telling you a lot more about me, than I'm finding out about you."

He kissed her neck.

"Shall I even the score?"

She laughed softly.

"If you want to."

"My favourite colour is Pthalo blue, I can't ice skate, and my first kiss was with the eight year old daughter of my father's cousin. I was six…" his lips curled upwards. "That number you were going to ask about earlier-."

"Your conquests?" her eyes sparked.

"Would not be my chosen wording, but yes. Thirty-six."

Her lips pursed to form a 'o'.

"Take into account, Clarice; I've had a fair number of years to accumulate that."

She laughed softly, that charming, slightly self-conscious laugh that he was growing so fond of.

"Also, I have never been in a committed relationship which lasted longer than two months."

"Really?"

She seemed genuinely surprised by this confession.

"Yes, present company excluded."

Her expression softened slightly.

"More?"

"Oh, I think I know the important stuff." Starling inhaled deeply. "…You eat the seeds off sesame crackers before you eat the cracker, you pull out the sports column of the newspaper before you read the other sections, you hate the FOX network, and you watch the news on mute. Sometimes you talk in your sleep-."

"You snore." He retorted, playfully.

"Lies."

She interlaced her fingers with his, pushing his hand further down her belly, into the curls of pubic hair. He curled two fingers into the heated, slightly swollen, flesh there.

"You had singing lessons when you were a child."

His eyebrows jerked up and he stilled his fingers.

"Oh yes?"

"Yeah. No one hums arpeggios in the shower for fun. You were taught at a young age. You've got a good voice. Not great-," she stressed, as he opened his mouth to comment, "but good." She took another breath, curling his hand further around the crest of her pubic bone. "You hate salmon, your least favourite day is Thursday, football practically brings you out in a rash and…"

"And…?" his lips parted in exaggerated expectation.

"You squirm like a teenager when I'm on top."

He laughed, the sound rich and well-rounded.

"I deny all knowledge of such an event."

She turned her head to face him.

"Is this a plea of innocence?"

"Indeed."

"Well, consider your plea overturned. You are guilty as charged."

He chuckled.

She stroked his fingers, now lying flat on her lower abdomen.

"I've got a question – for my last secret – but I'm not so sure I should ask it."

There was silence between them for a few beats.

"You can ask me anything, Clarice."

"Anything?"

"Yes."

She slipped her fingers into the spaces between his, and formed a fist with both of their hands.

"Okay..."


	9. Ten

'_Ten'_

_._

"_I've got a question – for my last secret – but I'm not so sure I should ask it."_

_There was silence between them for a few beats._

"_You can ask me anything, Clarice."_

"_Anything?"_

"_Yes."_

_She slipped her fingers into the spaces between his, and formed a fist with both of their hands._

"_Okay..."_

Their combined hands lay across the crest of her pubic bone, nestled in the hollow of her hip bones. The intimacy of their position was not lost on Starling. She wanted him as close as possible for her next question because, for the first time tonight, she was slightly afraid of his answer.

"Okay. What does it feel like to kill a man?"

Silence followed.

Hesitant, Starling looked over to her lover, meeting his gaze. There was no laughter there – hidden or otherwise. No mockery, nor malcontent at her choice of question. Only the slightest of frowns. Surely, he must have guessed that she was going to ask him. It was only logical, given their history.

To kill a man. She meant, of course, what did if feel to kill a man in the manner in which he killed. Because, Clarice Starling had taken a life before.

She had taken several. At arm's length, she had held a Glock 22 and fired metal projectiles into the soft bodies of her country's enemies. Standing fifty metres away, she had taken out a woman with a Mac 10 aimed at her head. Close enough to hear him breathe; she had shot Jame Gumb twice to the chest. But she had never killed a man in the way in which Hannibal Lecter had killed a man. There was nothing personal in the lives she had taken. There was no emotion – besides the natural guilt she felt afterwards, having taken a life she felt ambivalent, or even pitying, towards.

There was no satisfaction, no completion from the act. No poetry.

Sickened by her own thoughts, Starling swallowed and forced her mind back onto the situation at hand.

"You don't have to answer. It was just an idea…"

His eyes flickered between hers, and then he shifted his head on the pillow, tilting it to view her better. She began to pull her hand free, but he clasped her tighter, holding her against herself.

"Hannibal?"

He let go of her hand and freed himself from her, sliding away across the bed and moving into a kneeling position. Close enough to touch, but putting enough distance between them to make her slightly nervous.

"Hannibal?"

Stop saying his name, girl. Damn it, he's not a dog!

Starling bit her lip, watching her lover with slight trepidation. His gaze, she realised, was not a frown of confusion. There was understanding in it. And more than a little hunger.

"Clarice," he finally spoke, his voice silken thunder in the soft humming silence of their hotel bedroom, "Do you understand the principle of Inertia?"

"Never heard of it."

"Physics, I am afraid, Clarice. Inertia is the resistance of any physical object, to a change in its state of motion. The resistance of your tiny body to the rotation of the entire world around you – the balance in which you exist."

"Let me guess," Starling felt a small smile draw on her lips, "you're about to thrown that balance completely off?"

She stretched out her fingers, bidding him come back to her side.

"No." he smiled slightly and moved closer, ignoring her outstretched hand. Instead, his fingers trailed across one of her knees, skimming the fold of skin between her thigh and calf. "No, Clarice, I am about to change the value of the planet you have been rotating."

"So, in other words, you're gonna blow my world?" A little chuckle. Then a sigh, and she whispered; "You've already done that, H."

For the first time, the words felt easy coming out.

Her lover's eyes twinkled, but he did not speak. Fingers moved further up her thigh, dancing over the soft skin on the inside. The touch was magnetic. Starling found herself rising to it.

"All jesting aside, Clarice, this is not alike the light-hearted questions, of earlier this evening." his eyes were a little more serious now. "However, if you are ready, then I am happy to comply."

"To know how it is to kill a man?" she scoffed, "I think the notches on my holster say I'm more than qualified."

"No, Clarice…" his eyes flickered, dangerously, "your question was not how it is to kill a man, it was; how does it _feel_ to kill a man."

There was a difference there, encapsulated in that one small word, but Starling couldn't quite grasp it. And her lover's fingers, tracing languid patterns across her thigh, were not helping her concentration levels.

"I'm ready."

"Then, I shall show you."

_Hang on, wait…_ "Show me?"

Starling's mind snapped into place. Her body must have stiffened, too, because a smile crept across his lips. His fingers explored further around the boundaries of her thighs. Then, he moved into the space between, kissing each knee lightly, before setting them against his body.

"Yes. Show you."

"Show me how?"

Her words came out as accusatory. Unintended, but Starling could not help it. She was nervous now, her heart beginning to quicken in her throat. In the back of her mind, Jack Crawford's words rang out; 'never forget what he is…'

…'There are no words for what he is'.

Another echo. Another shiver. Starling swallowed and pressed her knees against him, wondering if, that by reaffirming his solidity, he would suddenly return to the playful lover of earlier.

"Hannibal…?"

No such luck, however.

He moved in on her with the precision and accuracy of a trained predator. She was the doe, caught in the wolf's jaws, unaware she had even been being stalked. Missionary position, achieved easily through sheer brute force. A rediscovery of her partner's power.

His body pressed down into her, a surprising heat emanating through the thin fabric of the shirt she wore – his own shirt. She could feel the muscle of his chest and his heartbeat, going a little faster than his infamous eighty-five. Starling squirmed, but he just inched a little further up, forcing his head into the crook of her neck and inhaling deeply. Her left wrist was trapped in his fingers. Her right hand was gripping his shoulder, possibly harder than she would normally.

"H, what are you-?" His lips parted and he stooped to graze sharp incisors against her skin. Centimetres, literally centimetres, from her carotid artery and Jugular vein.

Starling squirmed. As frightening as the situation had suddenly become, her body was responding in a very familiar way. His heated muscle and sinew, filling the negative space of her person, was causing heat to pool in her belly. The muscles of her pelvic floor fluttered in hopes of finally achieving what had been hinted at all night.

His tongue glided out, tracing the edge of her neck's strap-muscles, and Starling whimpered aloud.

"Hell, Hannibal!"

She managed to insert her free hand under his chest and lever him back off her far enough to confront him face-to-face.

"What are you doing?"

A warning tone: she wasn't joking.

At the back of her mind was the awareness, that screwing with Hannibal Lecter was a bit akin to keeping a wolf in her kitchen. It looked like a dog. It acted, for the most part, like a dog. It seemed domesticated, right up until the moment when nature took over. Survival instinct. Killer instinct.

He met her eyes steadily. Desire and blatant, unrepentant lust, was there, in high doses. So was control, he was holding back. This did little to steady her nerves, however. Starling had read the case files. She knew with what medical precision the Doctor had disposed of his victims. Like a hunter.

A hint of a swallow moved her throat.

He smiled amiably.

"Do you trust me, Clarice?"

She stared back, one hand pinioned near her head, body immobilised by his bulk. If she didn't trust him, this would be an ideal time to consider how she had got into this situation.

Starling let out a slow breath.

"Yes."

"With your safety?"

She shivered and removed her hand from the space between them, allowing him closer again.

"Yes."

"With your life?"

"...Always."

She swallowed and then relaxed her body completely, submitting to his superior power. With a groan of pleasure, he leant back in, taking in her scent again.

"But," she halted his progress with an outstretched hand, "I'd still like to know what you're doing."

"Mmmm, Clarice, trust me."

"Trust me…" she whispered, an echo of his words. Starling dropped her hand, letting him in; her fingers seeking out the side of his neck. "Trust me, I'm a Doctor."

A little laugh and he dipped his head in again, hot breath against the tender skin beneath her ear. Pressing it, flat at first and then teasing her with the tip. Agile. Arousing. She lay, pinned, completely at the mercy of whatever he chose to do with her.

"Ah-."

"You see, Clarice, there are a finite number of words in the English language. Though, I doubt that I could properly express my answer, even if we spoke a thousand languages."

Reaching around, he removed her hand from his neck and placed it above her head. Beckoning her gently to cooperate, he moved the other hand there too, and then held both of them firm, near the headboard of their hotel bed. Her breathing quickened, as he began to unbutton her shirt.

"Sometimes," his fingers gave a little tug with each button, drawing the fabric across her sensitive chest. "Sometimes, it is easier to express something in actions, rather than words."

Was this part of the game, or the reward – the sex pledged to follow their last secret? Was he going to tell her, or just hope she would forget what she had asked, in the aftermath of their union? Starling shivered, fingers gracing the curves of her abdomen. Did she care, anymore?

Freeing the buttons from their button-holes, Lecter parted the shirt to reveal her navel, brushing her skin, ever so gently. Then he leant in and kissed her, desire-reddened lips brushing skin that had rarely seen the sun.

Watching him, Starling's body readied a little more for him.

"Clarice, what did they call me?"

She frowned.

"What?"

"Back in the Asylum, Chilton and his cronies – your esteemed Jack Crawford – what did they call me?"

Starling stammered for a moment. Was she allowed to say it?

"Honesty really is the best policy, Clarice."

"They called you a monster… an animal."

He did not falter in his delicate unwrapping of her body from the shirt. As his hands wound around her sides, she lifted to allow him to free her. Slide, shift, he pulled the dark blue silk free from her back, and up to her shoulders. One arm at a time, she rolled to give him access.

"Indeed. Now,"

A final tug and the shirt came free from her arms. Completely naked again.

"If you don't mind, I would like you to store that away somewhere safe, for later analysis. Hmm?"

She tried to return her hands to her stomach, but he moved them back above her head, side by side, wrists crossed. Shifting closer to her body, he fitted himself snugly between her legs. She wondered if he felt safer there, protected by her body from exposure to the world.

With a nick of his two canine teeth and a deftly angled rip, the Doctor tore a long strip in the silken waist of the dinner shirt.

"Hey, that's Italian silk."

He gave her a withering look and then laid the strip atop her stomach. Leaning over, he placed his palms on either side of her face. Spotting an opportunity to do something other than lie there like a startled child, Starling lifted her head off the pillow and captured his lips in hers. A soft kiss, quickly progressing into something hard, demanding.

They tasted each other for a while, before Lecter pulled away, delicately ending their embrace.

"Back… to the crux of the matter."

His palms moved inwards, cradling each side of her face between them. Her cheeks brushed against his forearms, the hair there tickling her skin. His erection, now fully present, was pressed heatedly into her leg, the soft pulse of an artery in his groin ticking against her own engorged areas. The situation was fast becoming intolerable. Starling's breathing roughened as he nudged against her, teasing her with brief contact, when what she craved was penetration.

"To take a life, Clarice…"

She tried to lift her hands to his own face, but he was on her before she realised she had moved, pinning her wrists back together, above her head.

"It is a wondrous and terrifying thing, to hold a life in your hands."

She was pinned beneath him as he spoke. He had a binding across her belly, ready to tie her hands, she had no doubt. And all the while, he was speaking, softly, whispering melodically. Her body burned, ached, wanted for him like it had not since their first coupling.

Her mind was fighting to keep up. Her body was already lost.

"Clarice, what are the primary motives for serial murder?"

"Hannibal…"

"Please, my little Starling, indulge me. Think of it as 'quid-pro-quo' if you must." he smiled "Back to basics, yes?"

"Uh,"

He had tilted further back, supporting himself on splayed knees, hands travelling south from her neck to investigate the lines of her body. Starling fought to remain coherent.

"Um, sex..." she closing her eyes, muttering darkly as his fingers reached her nipple, "and power."

"Excellent." Brushing across the peaked tip, he circled around again, letting the length of his finger warm her breast. "Now, veto sex, as it is simply an exchange of power."

She opened one eye, staring up at him.

"Doctor, am I finally getting a profile, after all these years? Damn, if I'd known all I had to do was fuck you, I'd have done it sooner."

He pulled back the side of his lip in a half-sneer.

"Don't be crass, Clarice."

Perhaps in retribution for her comment, he squeezed the tissue around her nipple rather harder than usual, causing it to sting before throbbing delightfully. She whimpered and squirmed beneath him – not particularly enjoying the way he wouldn't let he move her hands.

"We are not talking about my motives for killing. I merely need you to concur, that procuring a state of power is a recognised motive for a murderer."

Dipping down, he pressed a hot kiss into the pectoral muscle above her left breast, just above where her heart fluttered madly in its ribbed cage.

As uneasy as being out of control made her, Starling found herself aroused by it – in a way that none of their other games could quite make her. Her legs were quivering, her abdomen tensing with anticipation. If she stopped to listen to herself breathe, she would hear that each exhale was ragged.

"And you acknowledge, then, that the taking of a life is an exchange of power?"

"A rather one-way exchange of power…" Starling mumbled. "Fine, yes."

"Okay then," another, light kiss, and then he drew away, picking up the strip of silk that lay on her belly.

"That for your next trick?" Starling panted.

They halted, in-situ, regarding one another; her mind running amok with the boundless possibilities in this situation. Then, he drew back and - in the most unexpected turn of events that evening - raised both of his wrists and placed them side-by-side.

"Tie them snugly, but please do not cut off the circulation."

"Wha- pardon?" Starling nearly choked in her enthusiasm to speak.

"Use the length I've made. Come now, Clarice, you trust me, do you not?"

"Well, yeah..."

Bemused, she complied, wrapping the dark blue silk tightly around his wrists in a firm figure eight. Tight enough to hold, but not enough to become uncomfortable, even with some pressure.

The Doctor tested her bonds and seemed satisfied.

"What're the cuffs for, Doctor?"

"All good things…"

"I hate that saying."

A smirk.

"I know."

He leant in, and his intention was clear. The time for words was dwindling. In fact, words seemed utterly superfluous, as he began to pick his way across her body. Even hampered by her makeshift restraints, Lecter was highly adept at finding her erogenous zones. He started clinically – gentle pressure to points across her body, with accurate fingers. Then his movements became steadily more adventurous, more torturous. A kiss her, the graze of his teeth there. Fingers, lips, tongue; it was a maddening pattern, and growing more maddening by the moment.

Underneath the hot confines of his body, Starling squirmed and arched.

They kissed again, her lifting off her bed to meet him. His hands, knotted together, pressed into her stomach between them. The inelegance of the moment made them both laugh slightly, but the smiles soon vanished from their faces, replaced with hunger.

Relaxing into a new-found rhythm, Starling's lover began to pay further attentions to the lower regions of her body. Her belly first; a part of her anatomy which seemed – for reasons Starling deemed inexplicable – to be a personal favourite of his. Hot tongue, wetted lips, the briefest graze of fingernails as he stroked her skin. Then, he dipped lower; a movement requiring impressive manipulation of his off-balance body.

Her hands had, up until this point, instinctively stayed where he had put them. However, at the pressure of his thumb against her perineum, staying still became a moot point.

"Oh, God…"

She whimpered, hands sweeping down to knot around his neck.

"That moment when their life is surrendered..."

Her eyes rooted on his. He had the fingers of one hand against her, knuckle pressed into the swollen labia, thumb resting against her perineum. She twitched, moving her hips, aching for the thrill of pleasure it gave her. But her movements were met with a refusal to cooperate on his part. His hand remained still.

"That moment feels like a breaking the water's surface, after a long time submerged. That first thrill of oxygen."

Her hands moved down from his neck to his wrist, nestled between their bodies. Grabbing for the Doctor's fingers, she tried to initiate movement there, but he resisted again, moving his hand back up to her abdomen and fixing her with a piercing gaze.

"Like awakening."

Unable to stand it any longer, Starling wiggled away, up towards the headboard and rolled herself upright. Up on her knees, Starling gathered herself. She was in no way a virginal figure and, over the last few months, they had become knowledgeable in each other's anatomy. Her fingers sought out how to please him.

However, after a few moments of manipulation and an attempt at fellatio from a dual upright and bound position – resulting in far too much hilarity than was customary for such a situation – she decided to reassess.

"This isn't gonna work. Roll over."

Uncharacteristically complaint, her lover took up position against the headboard.

"Lie down."

It was easier for her to lead, seeing as he was hampered by the restraints – which Starling had still not figured out the purpose of.

Throwing one leg over his abdomen, she straddled him.

"So... like awakening?"

He smiled, eyelids fluttering slightly as she nudged with her hips.

"Yes. That sudden rush of adrenaline, that moment of clarity when your mind grows silent and everything seems so... simple."

"Simple?"

"Yes, Clarice, clear... silent."

Starling arched her back, using his anatomy to gently pleasure her own. A few movements could give her what her body desired, could bring him inside her, but she held her ground. Rocking her hips gently across his, to mollify the throbbing ache she felt.

"It is a slow build up."

The Doctor lifted his bound hands and placed them against her stomach, his voice liquid silk as he spoke to her.

"A pressure rising within you."

Starling wrapped her fingers around his wrists, stroking their soft underside. Leaning in, she kissed his curled-up fingers.

"And all the things you keep hidden inside float to the surface."

Rubbing. Back, now. Hot flesh pressed down into his abdomen. He was hard against her buttock, straining then relaxing. The alternating rhythms caused hot, rounded surges of pleasure to shoot through her.

Another kiss to his bound hands, then an arch of her back, lifting up on her knees. Legs squeezed muscled hips. The heat of his blood engorged genitalia so close to her own. So close. Letting go of his hands, she slipped one down between her own legs. Parting her own flesh, positioning herself closer. As she did, she brushed against him. Both wet, by now.

She wriggled in delight, causing him give a sharp intake of breath.

"Tease."

"Yeah?"

She dipped her body, feeling the anticipation of penetration. Swaying hips, she coaxed the head of his penis into the opening of her vaginal lips. But only just. Only enough for him to feel her around him before she rolled backwards, using him to stimulate her over-sensitive organs.

His breathing shallowed and he narrowed his eyes, but Lecter held his quiet. Starling shot her lover a grin. Okay, perhaps there was the slightest hint of teasing in her behaviour.

Preoccupied with her own power over his body, Starling didn't even register him brace his feet – didn't have time – before he thrust up, harshly sheathing himself inside her. She yelped aloud in surprise, and more than a little discomfort, hands shooting forwards to grasp his forearms.

"Fu-!" her words were smothered by a guttural moan.

Guess that served her right for being a tease...

His eyes were darker than she had seen since their earlier encounters in Memphis; the deepest, most vivid maroon.

"Shhh..."

Hands slid up her chest, finger pads scraping the skin over her sternum.

Brain still buzzing as her body adjusted to his presence inside her, Starling threw her head back. The painful suddenness of his actions had caused her skin to heat, pinpricks of sweat appearing on her forehead and across the back of her neck. Muttering quiet curses – little prayers to a God she didn't believe in – Starling tensed her pelvic floor, testing her body's acclimatisation to him. The tensing of her muscles tautened the skin around her clitoris, pulling the small concentration of nerves tight.

She panted, fighting for composure.

"Yes... All those things, which you keep hidden inside, float to the surface. And these aspects of your personality, they startle you. Wants from within, which you are not even aware that you had."

"Wants..?"

"Desires." He hissed back.

As consciousness began to filter back into her, Starling became aware of her nails, dug deep into her lover's arms. Slowly, almost painstakingly slowly, she began to angle backwards, closing any remaining space between them.

As they met, he began to move underneath her, gently encouraging her onwards. He arched, reaching the roots of her erogenous zones, deep inside her body. Tight, almost too-vivid pleasure. Rising and intensifying with each movement.

Locking her legs against his sides, she concentrated on slowing her breathing, adjusting to their union.

"We are those deepest, darkest desires, Clarice." His eyes sparked, looking up at her. "We are what we do and what we say. We are what we let slip when we think no one is watching; that darker side that we never see, because it hides deep to the surface in the mirror."

"Deepest desires, huh?"

"Mmm. I would venture to say, that darkest desires usually revolve around a quest for understanding, for redemption and absolution."

"But that' s just human nature. Seeking to understand and quantify – to put things in easily stored-away boxes."

"Very nice, Clarice."

"So," she frowned, "I would find some sort of absolution, or understanding, in that moment?"

"In a way."

As good as acclimatised to him, Starling began to move again, rocking slowly atop him, relishing the control she had in her upright position. The strength in her body pushed her onwards, overriding her initial discomfort. Starling rising. She felt alive, young, beautiful. Drawing her lover closer, feeling the intimacy of their synchronised breaths, Starling bit her lip. Pleasure.

Lecter gave an appreciative hum at her gentle undulations against him. His hands found their way upwards, to the line of her collarbone, stroking along the sheer edge of bone, masked there by sinew and skin. Starling leant in, stilling their movements for a moment, so that she could kiss him. To match his touch along her chest, her lips were tender – far softer than the growing desperation of their parrying movements.

The pause did not last long, however. This different position afforded her a different sensation, and soon the gentle rotation of her hips threw gasoline on the fire that burnt between them. Starling leant back up, throwing her growing desperation into her movements. Her lover had one foot braced against the bed. She rode the thrusts he offered.

Her heart was pounding. The sweat that had begun to prickle earlier was now forming beads along her neck and back. A singular drop, formed on her chest, wound a track down between her breasts and into the hollow of her navel. His fingers dragged through it, wiping it clear across her skin.

"In the crucial moment of surrender, you are exposed. Everything that you are is revealed."

Starling managed to mutter a half-whimpered response, before settling into a faster rhythm. His explanation was beginning to be lost to the singing of her body; the aching, the wanting. Below her, the Doctor paused. Breaths quickening, eyes closing momentarily, his clenched fingers were pushed into the slick, tensed muscle of her upper abdomen.

"Clarice..."

A particularly intense squeeze from her muscles caused him to lapse in concentration. Starling lifted almost completely off him, emulating the long thrusting movements that were better afforded in different positions.

He swallowed, tongue flitting out to lick his upper lip; defiantly a nervous habit.

Starling slowed her movements and leant back against his slightly-raised thigh. Heart beats like thunder, she slowed the pace for a few moments, lacing her fingers over his fists and cradling them against her belly.

"I love you."

They were only very quiet words, but his eyes opened for them; appearing serenely out-of-place beside his heaving ribs and twitching muscles. Almost thirty seconds of complete silence followed them, punctuated only by their breathing.

He did not speak. Instead, in an impressive show of power, he shifted her over to one side, allowing her to extricate herself from him before tipping her onto their shared sheets. Starling complied with his intimations, rolling onto her side. Three hundred and eighty thread-count cotton whispered across her skin, soft as satin.

Starling shivered. The electric threat, present ever since her question, was still hanging in the air between them.

Doctor twisted over and Starling responded in kind, inching a ways up the bed until she was against the headboard – a suitable reversal of their earlier positions. Her open hand was all the prompting he needed to settle himself between her thighs. Then, slipping lithely into the circle created by his bound hands, Starling drew him back down into the soft of the bed and, with one hand between then, guided him into her.

Long abandoned, was she, to that earlier Clarice Starling – the woman who had found herself in him, all those months ago, on Chesapeake Bay. There was no hesitance in her movements, or her words. She felt a little proud of herself, because of it.

"Love you a lot."

He remained silent, but his eyes travelled over her face with an emotion Starling could not place. Then it was gone and he turned his attentions to setting a new pace between them.

Long strokes massaged into angles of her anatomy which their previous position simply could not do for them. Starling tipped her head back, arching over his hands, bound behind her back. She was close to breaking, fast approaching the sheer drop into oblivion.

_Harder_.

She didn't need to ask. His body seemed to respond to hers without words.

"It feels like absolution, Clarice, it feels like a venting of some primal urge, need, desire, found deep inside you; a dormant longing."

"A desire to understand."

"And to be understood, Clarice. We pretend we don't, we sabotage our chances by our very natures, but every human creature desires to be understood. And no one can know you like..."

Starling arched again, rocking her body, changing angle. His eyelids fluttered close. When they opened, dark eyelashes did nothing to shield the feral glint in his eye.

"…Like the one who sees you, all of you, for what you truly are. And it is safe, Clarice." He gave a wry smile, punctuated by a scrape of his fingernails against her back. "It's safe, because they are witness to this great knowing of you, but they cannot hurt you with it."

Even monsters fear the dark, then. Starling watched his face as he wiped an errant bead of sweat away with one shoulder. He had slowed their lovemaking to an almost halt, movements torturously measured.

"That's what you fear, isn't it?"

"Yes. Both of us do." He added, sincerely.

It was surprisingly frank, even from him. Starling simply nodded. She had no response worthy of such an admission.

"Helluvah game, huh?"

"Helluvah game," he echoed, complete with accent.

His fingers had fallen to stroking her back – arched gently off the sheets. Grinding his hips into her, he rubbed slowly. Around, around. Starling's eyes fluttered closed. Much better, much better. The tightness in her belly was beginning to grow. Thrills of pleasure shot up her spine, concentrating in her lower back, growing, intensifying. Soft pleasure, at first, then growing harder, harsher. Starling's mouth stretched in a grin as she threw her head back, enjoying an opportunity to indulge in such clichéd behaviour.

_Better_.

She closed her eyes, abdomen tightening. Each stroke of him, against and inside her, lit through her body like electricity. She was on fire; every nerve ending and fibre. Lit up, burning; an effigy of the Clarice Starling she used to be.

Quickening to an almost bouncing rhythm, he shifted, roughly lifting her body, for better purchase. His hands were slipping further with each of their frenzied meetings. He couldn't' hold on.

...And neither could she.

_Faster_.

"Hannibal..."

Damn, he had a fine name to moan to the darkness. Those three syllables had never lost their effect on her. The same shiver shot down her spine now, as it did that first day in Baltimore.

Things had reached that strange stage, between lucidity and a dream-state. Everything around them was beginning to fade. Colour, even through the shadow of the pre-dawn, was vividly bright. The very dark, itself, seemed painted in a thousand more shades of grey than Starling had ever seen. As the world became clearer, certain truths began to rise to the surface of her consciousness; parallels between her and her lover, dark thoughts and desires; shivers she could not suppress, not even with a thousand rationalisations.

His eyes stood out like beacons – the only points rooting her to a corporeal world.

Belly tightening, nerves on edge, Starling whispered unrecognisable words in her lover's direction. Her toes spread out, dug, hard, into the soft cotton sheets beneath them. So close, so close.

Sensation reached a pitch where she could hear nothing but the jugular pulse in her ears. That and the ricochet of her own breathing; hard and irregular inside her rib cage. The pleasure was so great that it was becoming almost painful.

"There is no such thing as redemption, Clarice, not in a personal sense. Not completely. I am sure you can attest to that."

His words were grating, metallic, punctuated by harsh breaths. If she was nearing the edge of control, he was dancing along it.

"And, for one such as I, there is never an absolution. But in that moment, understanding is complete."

The growing tension was becoming so great that her every urge was to clamp down upon it, to regain control. But, she needed release. Starling forced herself to relax, concentrate. She accentuated her movements, pushing her back further, her hips wider, clenching her legs harder against her lover's.

Control was slipping from his gaze.

Her body was crying out, muscles aching, straining, ready, oh so ready. If she could only just...

He plunged into her again, strokes long then short. One of her hands was clasped around his back; the other loitered across his chest, delighting as he strained against her. Her hips worked, back nearly in spasm as she tried to move faster, thrust harder against him. Her left calf muscles were going numb, her toes cramping with the effort.

Faster, please, faster.

"H-H-Hanniba-al..."

Her fingers scraped lines across his chest, drawing blood.

"There is poetry… found in such a moment. To see-." he panted "-is all of a person – an entire human being…" pant, pant "– not just the parts we choose to show one another… It is utter truth, complete honesty. All seen, you are all powerful," a pause, punctuated by his ragged breathing. "To control existence, to hold life and death in your hands... now, tell me, Clarice, does that make you an _animal_... or a god?"

There was no noise. There was nothing, in fact, but her and him, bound together, writhing furiously against each other's bodies. Just heartbeats, and soaring pleasure. Aching readiness and perfect silence, shared sweat and air; her wild eyes, his wild gasping, all of it mixing in a glorious cacophony of stimulus. Clarity was approaching. His blood was on her fingertips.

Starling panted. Her lover gave a broken groan.

"The only one who can know all of you" his breaths were gasps now "– truly know all of you –," Eyes fully open, electric gaze fixed deep inside her. "Is the one who lies before you, staring into your eyes as you rip their heart out with your bare hands."

Body held in stasis; strained, from curved neck, to arched back, to spread toes. Starling rising, gasping, hanging on the edge of everything.

So close, so close...

"You tell me what it feels like, to kill a man, Clarice..." eyes fixed on hers, wild with electric danger, and more than a little mischief "...I die for you every time you come."

And... She was falling.

"Oh God, Hannibal, please..."

Falling into the abyss, all heat and rush. Like those first moments of a rollercoaster, dropping from great heights at a tremendous speed, her mind could not catch up with her body. Then;

"Yeah, oh ye- ...yes, yes, yesyesyes ye- ah!"

A short series of cries escaped her. She was bursting from inside, thoughts splitting, fragmenting, being thrown to the very corners of her known universe. Exploding, burning, dying; yet never more alive. Beyond words, beyond anything.

She screamed his name. He whispered hers, eyes closing as he lengthened his strokes, thrusting harder, faster, each second bringing a renewed burst of pleasure for her, and pushing him closer to his inevitable breaking point.

When he did break, he did it with a cry of her name, plunging into her with renewed abandon.

Aftershocks rocked her body. Still trembling, she clung to him.

"Yes... Ha..."

He fucked her until all that was left were diminishing twitches. And then, the lovers collapsed into one another, gasping for breath as cool Buenos Aires air drifted in through their still-open windows.

The noises in the street below had not changed. Lives carried on below, oblivious to their rapture.

The sky was deepest purple, only the very hints of a sunrise painting the eastern-most horizon. Starling got her request. They had made love before the sun had even risen.


	10. Possibilities

_Possibilities_

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Breathing had slowed, heart rates returning to normal. The sheen of sweat that decorated backs and chests was evaporating in the heat of the night air. The secret was told, the deed was done and, now, the prospect of sleep was beginning to creep back into Clarice Starling's body.

After pulling apart, the lovers had gravitated back together, bodies seeking one another for warmth and comfort. They lay entwined amongst their bed's cotton trimmings. Her foot against his, his arm flung across her side, fingers brushing her back. It was comfortable, quiet, safe. As Starling stretched, her hand moved up to trace the scratches above his left pectoral muscles.

Her lover opened one eye in response.

"Hey," a lazy smile tickled her lips.

She was exhausted, but comfortably so. Her body felt as if she had done a ten mile run; comfortably sated, muscles stretched then relaxed. By morning she would ache, but, Starling thought, leaning in to kiss her lover's hand as it raised to her cheek, but it would be a good sort of aching.

"How'd you get these?" she traced along each scratch with her corresponding fingers, wondering, inwardly, when exactly she had grown nonchalant about physically assaulting a known serial killer.

"War wounds." He yawned in reply. "A crazed nymphomaniac attacked me. I was helplessly mauled."

"Oh yeah?"

The Doctor's thumb traced the bridge of her cheekbone, admiring its delicacy.

"Yes. Bound and completely helpless."

"Hey," Starling frowned, realising for the first time that he was no longer bound in the strip of blue shirt. "Where did your cuffs go, convict?"

Pushing herself up into a seated position, she extricated his other arm from under his body. Being decidedly contrary by nature, the Doctor made his body as limp as possible. After a few choice words, and a couple of yanks, she managed to pull his hand out, blue silk still bound just below the wrist. Its silken ends were frayed, as if it had been stretched before snapping. Starling raised her eyebrows.

"What happened there?"

"As you stated earlier, it was silk."

"I rolled it and tied it damn tight though."

"As well as could be expected," he teased gently.

Pulling his wrist free from her grasp, Starling's lover rolled her closer to him, cutting off any opportunity for retaliation by proximity. The ex-Agent wriggled for a moment, but soon relented to his embrace. He was far stronger than her. She had no hope of escaping.

"I did courses on knot-tying, you know." She muttered, grumpily, into his shoulder. "And I passed them."

He chuckled, the noise resounding in his chest.

"Is that an integral part of F-B-I training nowadays? Basic knot-tying."

"Haha" she stated, sarcastically. Pushing him back slightly from her body, Starling adopted a mock hurt and indignant expression. "Actually, it's so when we catch a known felon, we are able to incapacitate them before beating them around a bit."

"Hmm."

"It was a decent knot. Your inferior silk was what let us down."

"Oh Clarice," she looked over, catching his wink. "I do not think that we were let down… in any sense of the word."

Starling rolled her eyes, but a shy smile pulled at her lips. She gave him a gentle shove for his comment and wriggled around to gaze at the window. Outside, the sky was beginning to become decidedly pink around the horizons. A few minutes ago, she had risen and closed the window, blocking out the rising noises of the morning commuters.

Starling was glad not to be one of them; driving in a small metal car to their small menial jobs. Such repetition, day after day. Yesterday she had been on a plane from Prague. The week before, exploring an old opera house in Venice. Life on the run was never repetitive. Hannibal Lecter was many things, but bored was seldom one of them – at least, not if he could help it.

Starling exhaled deeply. She had had her fair share of excitement for a good long while. Sleeping the morning away, tangled up in cotton sheets and the limbs of her, very sated and very pleased-with-himself lover, seemed just about the right thing for her to be doing. She tried, and failed, to suppress a large yawn.

"If it consoles you at all, cara mia, the knot was perfectly functional. My Roman namesake and his assembled armies – hosts of elephants included – could not have stopped me at our little moment of climatic… affection."

A chuckle from Starling, then both of them lapsed into companionable silence.

Looking up at him, Starling was willing to admit that she knew precious little more about him, from her questions. In itself, the entire exercise had been more revealing of her. However, she had gleaned something else of use, apart from one of the most intense orgasms of her life, from the night's playful encounter. She had found, in those final moments of passion – grasped together and gasping for air – that she had known him better than words could ever describe. Their bodies fit in beautiful synchrony. His words struck chords deep within her heart. Like he had said earlier, somewhere inside her – somewhere deep and unexamined as of yet – she desired to be understood. And he could do that. He could look inside and see her; not just the surface, not just what she showed the world, or saw in the mirror, but _her_. All of her.

That was his gift; not words, nor ferocious acts, but simply seeing people.

She guessed that, at times, it must be more of a curse than a gift. People were, after all, inherently flawed. They fought and thieved, hurt and betrayed one another. Every story on the news bulletins, no matter how far she and the Doctor travelled around the word, was about war, or famine, or disaster. The human race was fascinated with what repulsed them. Some repressed 'deepest desire'? Starling was not sure yet. Personally, she did not know what she was capable of. She was not even sure she wanted to know.

Pushing aside thoughts of darkness and repressed desires – she would address them in the cold light of some other day – Starling curled her body closer to her lover and breathed out a heavy sigh.

There were so many secrets left unaired between them. Hers, in equal proportion to his.

All those little things…

_The coffee maker she broke, and told Ardelia it was Brigham on a drunken night. Her pair of lucky socks which she had owned since she was twelve. That her brother had sent her birthday cards, up until she was twenty eight - that they were shoved, unopened, into a box underneath her bed. That she hated the colour orange. When she was ten, she had fallen out of a treehouse and the neighbour kids had made her walk all the way home by herself because they didn't want to get into trouble. A stolen twinkie from the local corner store. (She took it back and snuck it back onto the shelf the very next day. She cried all night, thinking about what her father would have said). That, until she was twelve, she had never really considered how babies were made. That there was a spot in the back of the bleachers in the high school gym, where her initials were carved beside those of her first boyfriend. Crying at 'Old Yeller'. Having never worn fake nails. Disliking antipasti. Shaving her left eyebrow off in her first year of University, on a drunken dare. Having annihilated every plant she ever owned. That stash of erotic books that she bought from a local charity shop. _

_That she kept every note, tape, recording, and clipping, that she had come across, of him…_

So many things.

She curled closer. The hard edge of his hip pressed into her side and it comforted her, knowing he was there. Clarice Starling had never had anyone be there for her before. She was beginning to kind of like it.

She was beginning to kind of like him too. And, though she could never condone the things he had done, there was a part of her which could understand why he did them. If she could see people like he did, maybe she would do such things too. Maybe – Starling shivered to herself – if circumstances had been different, it would have been she behind those bars, he looking in. But those were the secrets that time would keep to herself. All those alternate pathways, endless possibilities.

Starling lay back into the sheets; for now, satisfied with the present and the trace of her lover's fingertips through her hair. Deep questions and repressed desires could wait. She was tired. It was time to sleep.

Drifting off, his voice caught her.

"Clarice?"

She opened her eyes, lids heavy, to look up into his face. The Doctor's expression was serene.

"Yes?"

"Thank you."

She did not cheapen the statement by asking what for. Instead, she tilted her head back and took his mouth in a kiss. Her actions spoke all that she needed to say, and, after a minutes gentle embrace, they parted to mutual understanding.

Cotton sheets whispered across her skin as she wrapped them closer around her body. It was not cold, but there was comfort in being held by them. Reaching around her, Lecter pulled a pillow into the small of her back. A barrier behind her, the headboard above her and him at her other side; she felt safe, protected.

It had taken a long time to get used to the idea that taking care of herself and having someone take care of her did not necessarily have to be at odds to one another. Now, she relaxed into him and embraced the possibilities that their future together held. Time would tell. But, from here, they looked endless.

He kissed her forehead.

"Silent dreams, little Starling."

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_Fin_

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_A/N - All I really have to say, to you all, is **thank you**. Writing makes my world go 'round, but you guys enjoying it makes it go 'round twice as fast. Thank you for the support, PMs, comments, reviews, etc. I appreciate it more than I can say._

_So long and adieu,_

_Silver._


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